I was afraid of it at first. It didn't seem to me natural. I didn't
feel, somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say,
to produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I
might have written nonsense."

"And had you written nonsense?" Denis asked.

"Certainly not," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance.
"Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling mistakes and
slips, such as there generally are in automatic writing. But the style,
the thought--all the essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration
came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of 'Humble Heroisms' like that.
It was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written
since." He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. "That's
my secret," he said, "and that's how you could write too, if you
tried--without effort, fluently, well."

"But how?" asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been
insulted by that final "well."

"By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your
Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, 'Pipe-Lines to the
Infinite'?"

Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps
the only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's works he had not read.

"Never mind, never mind," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "It's just a little
book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get
into touch with the Subconscious and you are in touch with the Universe.
Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?"

"Perfectly, perfectly," said Denis. "But don't you find that the
Universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?"

"I don't allow it to," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. "I canalise it. I
bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind."

"Like Niagara," Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's remarks
sounded strangely like quotations--quotations from his own works, no
doubt.

"Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it." He leaned forward,
and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them, beating
time, as it were, to his discourse. "Before I go off into my trance, I
concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am
writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the
trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers
and sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind
on such great phi