He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence overwhelmed him. “I wish I could talk to them as I talk to myself,” he thought. “I’m not such an ass when I talk to myself. I don’t believe, for instance, that quite all I thought about the cow was rot.” Aloud he said, “I’ve sometimes wondered about writing.”
“Writing?” said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives everything its trial. “Well, what about writing? What kind of writing?”
“I rather like,”—he suppressed something in his throat,—“I rather like trying to write little stories.”
“Why, I made sure it was poetry!” said Agnes. “You’re just the boy for poetry.”
“I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I could judge.”
The author shook his head. “I don’t show it to any one. It isn’t anything. I just try because it amuses me.”
“What is it about?”
“Silly nonsense.”
“Are you ever going to show it to any one?”
“I don’t think so.”