thirty-six sittings, a chapter at a sitting. 'Val
Strange,' a work of equal length or nearly, was written in as many
consecutive days. 'Aunt Rachel,' the one work of mine which may outlive
me by a score of years, was written at such a pace that a copying
clerk would have some ado to transcribe it in the time. Its three last
chapters were written between sunset and sunrise in the midst of as
tragic interruptions as ever befell the writing of comedy anywhere.

With this lifelong habit of swift workmanship upon me, I thought that
all I needed was to see my theme before me, and to go at it with my
whole heart as I would have done at a new novel. In writing a novel you
want a live place and live people; and these being provided, your book
is as good as finished when you are half-way through with it. But I
shall never forget in what a quagmire I landed myself when I began to
write 'Chums' upon this principle. I have always, since I can remember,
been a student of the acted drama. I acted for some years as dramatic
critic in the provinces and in London. I knew as much about the
exigencies of stage construction as the average man, and found that
that meant a little less than nothing. The very method of work looked
curiously bare and bald. My study for years has been to me a theatre in
which I have acted many scores of different parts, often enough before
a mirror to assure myself of nature. Yet I no sooner began to write
consciously for the stage than this useful faculty abandoned me
entirely. I no longer saw my living people; but in their stead the
members of the travelling company obtruded themselves upon me.

My leading lady was before me in the place of Lucy Draycott. She was and
is a most excellent and charming actress; but she was only playing at
being Lucy Draycott, and she stood in between me and my own conception
in a way which filled me with a cold embarrassment. Then, again, Square
Jack Furlong, a rustic rascal, who, as I boldly hoped, was to make quite
a new type of stage villain, was to be impersonated by a heavy man of
quite the conventional sort--a man who (small blame to him) would have
no idea of the accent my scoundrel was to speak in (a vital point to me)
and not a conception of the inner workings of his mind. In this way
all the real people who supposed they were to interpret my shadows into
flesh and blood converted my flesh and blood into shadow. Understand
that I am not apologizing for a bad play or a fa