If these
points are not altogether in the clear to you, nevertheless it is
certainly wise to be definite in securing your own copyright on
stories, when that is possible, by agreeing with your publisher for
the release to you of all dramatic rights.
To return once more to the subject of originality, in W.W. Jacobs's
story, "The Monkey's Paw," the thrillingly terrible crisis begins when
the father, much against his will, makes use of the second wish
granted to him as the possessor of the fatal paw and wishes his dead
son alive again. In the night he and his wife are aroused by a
familiar knocking on their door. The mother, believing it to be their
son returned to life, rushes to let him in, but while she is trying to
unlock the door, the husband, remembering the terrible condition of
the son's body, he having been crushed to death by some machinery,
utters the third and last wish. The knocking ceases, and when the
woman succeeds in getting the door open, the street lamp flickering
opposite is shining on a quiet and deserted road.
Substantially the same plot is used in a story published in _The Blue
Book_, "The Little Stone God," the principal difference being that,
when those in the house hear the knocking on the door, they refuse, in
utter terror, to answer the summons.
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