Dreiser was not above plagiarizing a good description when he saw one. He pilfered George Ade's characterization of a "masher" from the latter's "The Fable of the Two Violin Players and the Willing Performer" (which Dreiser probably read in the 7 October 1899 issue of the Chicago Record). The manuscript for Chapter I, in which this description is used to depict George Drouet, is literally spliced by Dreiser to add the Ade-supplied detail. In the 1901 Heinemann edition the section was rewritten to eliminate any appearance of plagiarism, but the 1981 Pennsylvania Edition returned to the original splice found in the manuscript and transcribed in the typescript.