"I think I ought to be making four hundred a year," says Wriford.
"So do I," says Mr. Occshott and laughs. "All right. You are. Is that all right?"
Young Wriford is overwhelmed. He had never expected this. He hesitates. He almost agrees. But it is only, as he had said, "partly" a question of money. It is the better work that really he wants. It is the constant chafing against the Gamber limitations that really actuates him. He knows what it will be if he stays on. He is quite confident of himself if he resists this temptation and leaves. He says: "No. It's awfully good of you—awfully good. But it's not only the question of money"; and then he fires at Mr. Occshott a bombshell which blows Mr. Occshott to blazes.
"I'm writing a novel," says Young Wriford.
"Oh, my God!" says Mr. Occshott and covers his face with his hands.
There is no room in any well-regulated popular periodical office for a young man who is writing a novel. It is over. It is done. Good-bye to Gamber's!
VII
And immediately the catastrophe, the crash; the springing upon Young Wriford of that which finally and definitely is to catch him and hunt him and drive him from the Young Wriford that he is to the Mr. Wriford that he is to be; the scene that follows when he tells Alice and the Filmers what he has done.
He tells them enthusiastically. In this moment of his first release from Gamber's to pursue the better work that he has planned, he forgets the depression that always settles upon him in the Surbiton establishment, and speaks out of the ardour and zest of successes soon to be won that, apart from the joy of telling it all to some one, makes him more than ever grudge this weekend visit when work is impossible. He finishes and then for the first time notices the look upon the faces of his listeners. He finishes, and there is silence, and he stares from one to the other and has sudden foreboding at what he sees but no foreboding of that which comes to pass.
Alice is first to speak. "Oh, Phil," says Alice—trembling voice and trembling lips. "Oh, Phil! Left Gamber's!"