"And I have had practice. I attempted once, when my years were less and my zeal more, to clothe an orphan with the work of my own hands. I thought I would operate free hand, as you call it, and I wish you could have beheld the result. The orphan's own mother would never have recognized her babe in the midst of the strange, polyangular bundle of cloth. I suspect that the same might be said of a good many novelists, and that a judicious trimming of the seams according to some established pattern might improve their work."
Arlt nodded approvingly.
"As usual, Miss Gannion has spoken wisely," he remarked.
"Miss Gannion has only echoed my words," Sally objected.
"Not at all. You said it was harder to work from a pattern; I merely suggested that the results were more satisfactory."
"Well, never mind," Sally returned promptly. "I don't care about that, so long as the vote goes against Bobby."
"And then, this matter of studying," Bobby went on, disdaining her interruption. "Now, when you get hard up for ideas, Arlt, when you actually can't get enough out of your gray matter to fill up your pattern, you go off somewhere and study something. Now, if I—"
"What have you to do with it, Bobby?" Miss Gannion queried.
"I represent literature, of course, just as Arlt represents music. If I were to go off and study something, what would you all think?"
"That it was the best possible thing you could possibly do," Sally retorted.