"Quite well!" he repeated sharply. "I shall be as right as a trivet to-morrow. You don't suppose that I can't take care of myself! We'll start at once."
"You're not forgetting, Mr. Aked, that you've never seen any of my stuff yet? Are you sure I shall be able to do what you want?"
"Oh, you'll do. I've not seen your stuff, but I guess you've got the literary habit. The literary habit, that's the thing! I'll soon put you up to the wrinkles, the trade secrets."
"What is your general plan of the book?" Richard asked with some timidity, fearing to be deemed either stupid or inquisitive at the wrong moment. He had tried to say something meet for a great occasion, and failed.
"Oh, I'll go into that at our first formal conference, say next Friday night. Speaking roughly, each of the great suburban divisions has, for me at any rate, its own characteristics, its peculiar moral physiognomy." Richard nodded appreciatively. "Take me blindfold to any street in London, and I'll discover instantly, from a thousand hints, where I am. Well, each of these divisions must be described in turn, not topographically of course, but the inner spirit, the soul of it. See? People have got into a way of sneering at the suburbs. Why, the suburbs are London! It is alone the—the concussion of meeting suburbs in the centre of London that makes the city and West End interesting. We could show how the special characteristics of the different suburbs exert a subtle influence on the great central spots. Take Fulham; no one thinks anything of Fulham, but suppose it were swept off the face of the earth the effect would be to alter, for the seeing eye, the character of Piccadilly and the Strand and Cheapside. The play of one suburb on another and on the central haunts is as regular, as orderly, as calculable, as the law of gravity itself."
They continued the discussion until Adeline came in again with a tray in her hands, followed by the little red-armed servant. The two began to lay the cloth, and the cheerful rattle of crockery filled the room....
"Sugar, Mr. Larch?" Adeline was saying, when Mr. Aked, looking meaningly at Richard, ejaculated,—
"Friday then?"
Richard nodded. Adeline eyed her uncle distrustfully.
For some reason, unguessed by Richard, Adeline left them alone during most of the evening, and in her absence Mr. Aked continued to discourse, in vague generalities not without a specious poetical charm, on the subject upon which they were to collaborate, until Richard was wholly intoxicated with its fascinating possibilities. When he left, Adeline would not allow Mr. Aked to go to the door, and went herself.