‘A young fellow with all the world before him, too. Hang it, Mr Milvain, is there no less pernicious work you can turn your hand to?’
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Yule. After all, you know, you must be held in a measure responsible for my depravity.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I understand that you have devoted most of your life to the making of paper. If that article were not so cheap and so abundant, people wouldn’t have so much temptation to scribble.’
Alfred Yule uttered a short laugh.
‘I think you are cornered, John.’
‘I wish,’ answered John, ‘that you were both condemned to write on such paper as I chiefly made; it was a special kind of whitey-brown, used by shopkeepers.’
He chuckled inwardly, and at the same time reached out for a box of cigarettes on a table near him. His brother and Jasper each took one as he offered them, and began to smoke.
‘You would like to see literary production come entirely to an end?’ said Milvain.
‘I should like to see the business of literature abolished.’