“I’m sure they were delighted at the development of the Spiritual Aneroid’s attack upon you,” said Phyllis.
“They told me I was a made man,” said he.
She threw back her head—it was her way—and laughed. Her laughter—all the grace of girlhood was in its ring; it was girlhood made audible—was lightening her fair face as she looked at him.
“How funny!” she cried. “You fight your way through the New Guinea forests; you are in daily peril of your life; you open up a new country, and yet you are not a made man until you are attacked by a wretched newspaper.”
“That is the standpoint of the people who sell books, so you may depend upon its being the standpoint of the people who buy books,” said he.
“I can quite believe it,” said she. “Mr. Geraint, the novelist, took me down to dinner at Mrs. Lemuel’s last night, and he told me that the only thing that will make people buy books is seeing the author’s portrait in some of the illustrated papers, or hearing from some of the interviews which are published regarding him that he never could take sugar in his coffee. The reviews of his books are read only by his brother authors, and they never buy a book, Mr. Geraint says; but the interviews are read by the genuine buyers.”
“Mr. Geraint knows his public, I’m sure.”
“I fancy he does. He would be very amusing if he didn’t aim so persistently at going one better than someone else in his anecdotes. People were talking at dinner about your having massacred the natives with dynamite—you did, you know, Mr. Courtland.”
“Oh, yes; I have admitted so much long ago. There was no help for it.”
“Well, of course everyone was laughing when papa told how the massacre came about, and this annoyed Mr. Geraint and induced him to tell a story about a poor woman who fancied that melinite was a sort of food for children that caused their portraits to appear in the advertisements; so she bought a tin of it and gave it all to her little boy at one meal. It so happened, however, that he became restless during the night and fell out of his cradle. That happened a year ago, Mr. Geraint said, and yet the street isn’t quite ready for traffic yet.”