"He was ass enough to say you'd certainly live to hide it yourself on my account! I'm afraid that he unduly admires my stuff. He's a fellow who is full of sympathy——"
"And not free from humour—by no means free!" cried Mr. Mason, laughing at the top of his voice (as he had never, never laughed at Saltburn-by-the-Sea). "But seriously, you are ending your later stories far too sadly. To come back to your last one—though I'm afraid it's coming back to you! I rejected it, and then, as I was driving home, I thought you would perhaps alter it, if I called and asked you before you sent it elsewhere. Don't you think you could soften your good father—just at the end?"
"I couldn't," said the young fellow, with a candid stare; but his eyes fell under the cool, kindly scrutiny of the elderly man, who continued gazing at the well-shaped head, on which the hair was perhaps a trifle long and untidy. For once that day Wolff Mason was the equal of the occasion, and he knew it to his consolation. The occasion, moreover, was the very one to which he would have desired to rise.
"Why couldn't you, my dear fellow?"
"Because it isn't life."
"Are you so sure that you know life?"
"I know it as I find it," said the young fellow bitterly; and there was a pause.
"Well, at any rate, you know that I like your stories."
"I am thankful to hear it."
"I want to accept them——"