CHAPTER X
Darco’s work fell into routine for a time. The wheels of all his affairs went so smoothly that he and his assistant found many easy breathing-spaces. But Paul was of a mind just now to scorn delight and live laborious days. He confined himself for many hours of each day to his bedroom, and on the weekly railway journey with his chief he sat for the most part in a brown study, And made frequent entries in a big note-book.
‘Vat are you doing?’ Darco asked one day.
Paul blushed, and answered that he would rather wait a day or two before speaking.
‘I shall ask your opinion in a week at the outside,’ he added.
Darco went to sleep, a thing he seemed able to do whenever the fancy took him, and Paul made notes furiously all through the rest of the journey. His ideas affected him curiously, for at times his eyes would fill and he would blow his nose, and at other times he would chuckle richly to himself. He had got what he conceived to be a dramatic notion by the tip of the tail, and he was engaged in the manufacture of his first drama. In due time the result of his labours in his most clerk-like hand was passed over a breakfast-table to Darco, who winced, and looked like a shying horse at it.
‘Vot is id?’ he asked.
‘It is a play,’ said Paul, blushing and stammering. ‘I want to have your judgment on it.’
‘Dake it away!’ cried Darco; ‘dake it away. I am wriding blays myselluf, ant I will nod look at other beoble’s. No. Dake it away!’
Paul stared at him in confusion.