it were two ferocious looking
animals, eating grain. They rolled their eyes upwards at us as they ate.

"How do those strike you?" he asked.

We assured him that they struck us as our beau ideal of bulls.

"Like to walk in beside them?" said the Novelist, opening a little gate.

We drew back. Was it fair to disturb these bulls?

The Great Novelist noticed our hesitation.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "They're not likely to harm you. I send
my hired man right in beside them every morning, without the slightest
hesitation."

We looked at the Eminent Novelist with admiration. We realized that like
so many of our writers, actors, and even our thinkers, of to-day, he was
an open-air man in every sense of the word.

But we shook our heads.

Bulls, we explained, were not a department of research for which we were
equipped. What we wanted, we said, was to learn something of his methods
of work.

"My methods of work?" he answered, as we turned up the path again.
"Well, really, I hardly know that I have any."

"What is your plan or method," we asked, getting out our notebook and
pencil, "of laying the beginning of a new novel?"

"My usual plan," said the Novelist, "is to come out here and sit in the
stye till I get my characters."

"Does it take long?" we questioned.

"Not very. I generally find that a quiet half-hour spent among the hogs
will give me at least my leading character."

"And what do you do next?"

"Oh, after that I generally light a pipe and go and sit among the
beehives looking for an incident."

"Do you get it?" we asked.

"Invariably. After that I make a few notes, then go off for a ten mile
tramp with my esquimaux dogs, and get back in time to have a go through
the cattle sheds and take a romp with the young bulls."

We sighed. We couldn't help it. Novel writing seemed further away than
ever.

"Have you also a goat on the premises?" we asked.

"Oh, certainly. A ripping old fellow--come along and see him."

We shook our heads. No doubt our disappointment showed in our face. It
often does. We felt that it was altogether right and wholesome that our
great novels of to-day should be written in this fashion with the help
of goats, dogs, hogs and young bulls. But we felt, too, that it was not
for us.

We permitted ourselves one further question.

"At what time," we said, "do you rise in the morning?"

"Oh anywhere between four and five," said the Novelist.

"Ah, and do you generally ta