“Well,” said Hugh, carefully fitting the finger tips of one hand on to the tips of the other, “I rise at a quarter to five, winter and summer, and get a cool two thousand off my chest while yet my fellow men are buried in slumber. And——”
“Excuse me,” said Miss Bibby, “I don’t quite follow—two thousand what, Mr. Kinross?”
“Words, of course,” said Hugh.
“B—b—but,” hesitated Miss Bibby, “I thought you said two hundred a day.”
Hugh blinked a moment.
“My dear Madam,” he said, “you have doubtless heard me called a stylist. Every one of those two hundred words I erase five to ten times, polishing, substituting, seeking to express myself better.”
Miss Bibby was writing fluently again.
“This,” said the author, “occupies me until half-past six, when I take three baths, one hot, one cold, one—like the church of the Laodiceans—neither. This stimulates me marvellously.”
Scratch, scratch went the fountain-pen.
“After this,” said the author, “I walk ten [p109] miles along a level road, and three through a hilly country, during the last mile of the latter practising the deep-breathing exercises so highly recommended by the medical faculty.”