Paul was thoughtful for a few moments and then remarked: "And yet it is
a pleasant work he is engaged in, and his days are passed in the fairest
fields; he evidently enjoys his trade even if he does seem to bustle
about it. I can excuse the buzz and the hum in him, when I can't always
in the human tribes."

"If you knew what he was saying just now, perhaps you'd find him as
disagreeable as the man who is condemned to earn his bread in the sweat
of his brow, and makes more or less of a row about it."

"Very likely, Jack, but these bees are born with business instincts, and
they can't enjoy loafing; they don't know how to be idle. Being as busy
as a busy bee must be being very busy!"

"There is the hum of the hive in that phrase, old boy! I'm sure you've
been working up to it all along. Come now, confess, you've had that in
hand for some little time."

"Well, what if I have? That is what writers do, and they have to do it.
How else can they make their dialogue in the least attractive? Did you
ever write a story, Jack?"

"No, of course not; how perfectly absurd!"

"Not in the least absurd. You've been reading novels ever since you were
born. You've the knack of the thing, the telling of a story, the
developing of a plot, the final wind-up of the whole concern, right at
your tongue's end."

"Paul, you're an idiot."

"Idiot, Jack? I'm nothing of the sort and I can prove what I've just
been saying to you about yourself. Now, listen and don't interrupt me
until I've said my say."

Paul caught hold of a branch of vine close at hand and set his hammock
swinging slowly. Miss. Juno settled herself more comfortably in hers,
and seemed much interested and amused.

"Now," said Paul, with a comical air of importance--"now, any one who
has anything at his tongue's end, has it, or _can_, just as well as not,
have it at his finger's end. If you can tell a story well, and you can,
Jack, you know you can, you can write it just as well. You have only to
tell it with your pen instead of with your lips; and if you will only
write it exactly as you speak it, so long as your verbal version is a
good one, your pen version is bound to be equally as good; moreover, it
seems to me that in this way one is likely to adopt the most natural
style, which is, of course, the best of all styles. Now what do you say
to that?"

"Oh, nothing," after a little pause--"however I doubt that any one, male
or female, can take up pen for the first time