truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally
I had reached my determination to write no more "slush," profitable
though it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the
conversation at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were
all the satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.

I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have
set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of
finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in
Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as
it had been at the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of
a story, but I could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not
write anything. With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I
blew out the lamp and went upstairs to bed.

Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
return until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not
mention the promised "prescription," although I offered him plenty of
opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.

He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on
the all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting
him to Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my
time, about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but
I was not particularly interested in these matters and they were not his
business, to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.

I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had
in the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me
and I did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent
enough, but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and
told stories all the way from the landing to the house and announced to
Hephzy, who had stayed at home from church in order to prepare and
cook clam chowder and chicken pie and a "Queen pudding," that he had an
appetite like a starved shark.

When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and
it lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
Hephzibah had laid out for him the day befo