“I made a contract with you to write ten articles at $2,000 each and I wrote them and you published six, and you haven’t published the other four.” Yes, came the editor’s reply, with the predictable response: the magazine had paid for all ten. “But if they aren’t worth publishing,” Coolidge said, “they oughtn’t to be paid for,” and he pulled out a check for $8,000. The move was deliberate, and deliberately Coolidge: somehow he had not pleased the other party. He gave the money back even though the contract did not say that he had to. The point, for him, was a simple one: it was important to
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