“You will reply that they have only to search for it; you must leave them something to do, these readers of yours.”
“Dear friend, I shall be overwhelmed with letters.”
“You need not answer them.”
“Yes, but for my personal gratification I, at least, must know why my hero longs to die.”
“Oh, I do not refuse to tell you.”
“Let me hear, then.”
“Well, suppose, instead of being professor of dialectics, Abelard had been a soldier.”
“Well?”
“Well, let us suppose that a bullet—”
“Excellent!”