ch
he will pass the time between labour and sleep will have none of the
subtlety of Meredith, none of the delicate artistry of Flaubert, but
rather the fluent obviousness of Guy Boothby, stripped as bare as
possible of sex romance.

I am anxious to convince myself of all this, because I want so much to
divorce this tremendous flood of machine-made writing from genuine
literary activity. That, too, will evolve and evolve and evolve again;
but with such a theme I am not genius enough to cope.

XXIII

I am grown tired of books. It is a fact that protracted manual toil
strikes a shrewd blow at one's capacity for thought, and at times I
turn from the fierce intellectual life with a weariness I never knew
in the old days. How my friend would smile at such a confession. I,
who have thumped the supper-table until three in the morning, until
our eyelids were leaden with fatigue, growing weary of the strife! Yet
it is sometimes true.

After all, though, my real study nowadays is on deck and below, where
Shakespeare and the musical glasses are beyond the sky-line, and one
can talk to men who have never in their lives speculated upon life,
have never imagined that life could possibly be arraigned and called
in question, or that morality could ever be anything but "givin' the
girl her lines, like a man." My friend the Mate is a compendium of
humanism, the Chief provides me with curious researches in natural
history. Even the Cook, with whom I have been conversing, presents
new phases of life to me, and brings me into touch with the poor, the
ignorant, and the prolific. The poor whom _we_ know at home are only
poor in purse. These men are poor in everything save courage and the
power to propagate their kind. The Cook has received a letter from his
sister-in-law to the effect that he is now the father of twins, and he
looks at me and smiles grimly. Under the pretence of obtaining hot
water for shaving, I am admitted to his _sanctum sanctorum_ abaft the
funnel, and we talk. It is hardly necessary to say that the Malthusian
doctrine receives cordial approbation from my friend the Cook, when I
have expounded it to him.

"Certainly, Mr. McAlnwick," he observes, "but 'ow are you goin' to
start?"

"You see," I reply, "it isn't a question of starting, but a question
of stopping."

"Well," he says stolidly, rolling a cigarette, "'ow are you goin' to
start stoppin'?"

"You," I answer, "might have dispensed with these twins.