"Don't you think you'd better make a clean breast of it to Gilbert and Wall?"
"What for?"
"Well, I don't know exactly: only it seems to me publishers and authors are in a more or less confidential relation. Being a publisher myself, I naturally feel rather strongly about it."
"I don't see it in the least," said the old lady decisively. "All this talk about the paternal relation is mere poppycock. They print me a book. If it takes a start, they back it. They're as glad as I am. But as to telling them my glorious little joke, why, I can't and I won't."
"But, dear woman, they're printing away with full confidence in having got a valuable book out of you."
"So they have. It's selling, isn't it?"
"Madly. Specialists want it for honest data. The general reader has got an idea from the reviews that there's personal gossip in it, more or less racy. So it goes."
"Well, let it go," said the old lady recklessly. "I shan't stop it."
"No, but I can't help thinking Gilbert and Wall ought to be in the secret."
"Do you imagine they'd stop printing?"