“I don’t remember.”
“Might I send you a copy? I think you ought to possess one.”
“Thank you.” His eye wandered. The bicycle had disappeared into some trees, and thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was also descending.
“Is all quite plain?” said Mr. Pembroke. “Submit these ten stories to the magazines, and make your own terms with the editors. Then—I have your word for it—you will join forces with me; and the four stories in my possession, together with yours, should make up a volume, which we might well call ‘Pan Pipes.’”
“Are you sure `Pan Pipes’ haven’t been used up already?”
Mr. Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been bearing with this sort of thing for nearly an hour. “If that is the case, we can select another. A title is easy to come by. But that is the idea it must suggest. The stories, as I have twice explained to you, all centre round a Nature theme. Pan, being the god of—”
“I know that,” said Stephen impatiently.
“—Being the god of—”
“All right. Let’s get furrard. I’ve learnt that.”
It was years since the schoolmaster had been interrupted, and he could not stand it. “Very well,” he said. “I bow to your superior knowledge of the classics. Let us proceed.”