"Why, y-yes, Susan; but——"
"Then make 'em hear it," she interrupted. "You can—you can!"
"How?"
"Make him write it down, jest as he talks. He can—he wants to. He's always wanted to. Then publish it in a book, so everybody can see it and hear it, as you did."
"Oh, Susan, if we only could!" A dawning hope had come into Keith Burton's face, but almost at once it faded into gray disappointment. "We couldn't do it, though, Susan. He couldn't do it. You know he can't write at all. He's only begun to practice a little bit. He'd never get it down, with the fire and the vim in it, learning to write as he'd have to. What do you suppose Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech would have been if he'd had to stop to learn how to spell and to write each word before he could put it down?"
"I know, I know," nodded Susan. "It's that way with me in my poetry. I jest HAVE to get right ahead while the fuse burns, an' spell 'em somehow, anyhow, so's to get 'em down while I'm in the fit of it. He couldn't do it. I can see that now. But, Keith, couldn't YOU do it?—take it down, I mean, as he talked, like a stylographer?"
Keith shook his head.
"I wish I could. But I couldn't, I know I couldn't. I couldn't begin to do it fast enough to keep up with him, and 't would spoil it all to have to ask him to slow down. When a man's got a couple of Huns coming straight for him, and he knows he's got to get 'em both at once, you can't very well sing out: 'Here, wait—wait a minute till I get that last sentence down!'"
"I know, I know," nodded Susan again. She paused, drew a long sigh, and turned her eyes out the window. Up the walk was coming Daniel Burton. His step was slow, his head was bowed. He looked like anything but the happy possessor of new wealth. Susan frowned as she watched him.
"I wish your father——" she began. Suddenly she stopped. A new light had leaped to her eyes. "Keith, Keith," she cried eagerly. "I have it! Your father—he could do it—I know he could!"