ss how many words I wrote this
evening between five and half-past seven."

"I can't imagine."

"No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven--that's two
and a half hours."

"Twelve hundred words," Denis hazarded.

"No, no, no." Mr. Barbecue-Smith's expanded face shone with gaiety. "Try
again."

"Fifteen hundred."

"No."

"I give it up," said Denis. He found he couldn't summon up much interest
in Mr. Barbecue-Smith's writing.

"Well, I'll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred."

Denis opened his eyes. "You must get a lot done in a day," he said.

Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He pulled up
a stool to the side of Denis's arm-chair, sat down in it, and began to
talk softly and rapidly.

"Listen to me," he said, laying his hand on Denis's sleeve. "You want to
make your living by writing; you're young, you're inexperienced. Let me
give you a little sound advice."

What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him an
introduction to the editor of "John o' London's Weekly", or tell him
where he could sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. Barbecue-Smith
patted his arm several times and went on.

"The secret of writing," he said, breathing it into the young man's
ear--"the secret of writing is Inspiration."

Denis looked at him in astonishment.

"Inspiration..." Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated.

"You mean the native wood-note business?"

Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded.

"Oh, then I entirely agree with you," said Denis. "But what if one
hasn't got Inspiration?"

"That was precisely the question I was waiting for," said Mr.
Barbecue-Smith. "You ask me what one should do if one hasn't got
Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration.
It's simply a question of getting it to function."

The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests;
everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on.

"That's my secret," he said. "I give it you freely." (Denis made a
suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) "I'll help you to find your
Inspiration, because I don't like to see a nice, steady young man like
you exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in
a grinding intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by
Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it's like. Up till the
time I was thirty-eight I was a writer like you--a writer without
Inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself