e natural--uneven number. Now what shall Tomkins
say? Yes. Ah--hum--what the deuce shall I make him say? It must not be
too much like what a dying man would say, because the British public is
dead against realism. It must not either show any strong contempt for
religion; a little mild contempt, of course, goes down and is
fashionable, but I must not express it forcibly. He must not either
evince a disbelief in immortality--at least that's dangerous ground.
Some publishers will accept it and some won't.--Better leave it out.
Ah--hum--what shall Tomkins say? I have it! A retrospect of his past
life! And yet--No, stay! that won't do. Something that sounds like
something that might possibly be immoral might turn up in it, and that
would be fatal--damn the MS. utterly. Well, look here, Tomkins has got
to die, and I've got to finish the book, so I must get something down.
'Darling Mabel, this parting is terrible, but still I feel we shall
meet in another world.' Now, is that safe? Has a similar phrase been
put in heaps of novels before? Because the British public won't have
anything too new. It likes to head over again what it has heard at
least fifty thousand times before, and then it knows it won't be
shocked. Yes, that sentence will do. Now I must put in a few more and
then, thank goodness, the scene will be done! Now," I said, springing
up from the table, "do you call that art? do you call it genius? Is a
collection of bald phrases and second-hand sentiments, hooked together
like that, worth anything when it's done?"

"My dear boy, don't excite yourself like that," my father answered
deliberately. "Sit down and finish your soup."

"Oh, hang the soup!" I said, resuming my seat. "Shall I sound the gong?
I have not told you my way yet, but I'm coming to it when the man's
gone." I sounded the gong, and the butler came in with the next course.

There was no carving ever done at our table, so my father had only to
tranquilly continue eating while I talked. He had forced me into the
discussion, and now he should hear it to the end.

"Of course, if you do write the death of Tomkins like that you can keep
your scenes orthodox, or whatever word you have in view. But, supposing
my MS. is lying incomplete;--I have a conviction that I am going to
write of death, but the method of the man's death is at present unknown
to me, unthought of.--Then, some afternoon, I happen to be sitting
smoking, and just perhaps wondering whether I sha