“I am a brute, Molly! Did he feel it very much?”
“He always spoke to God about it, not to me. He never finds it easy to talk to his fellow-man; but I always know when he is talking to God! May I tell your father what you have just told me Walter? But of course not! You will tell him yourself!”
“No, Molly! I would rather you should tell him. I want him to know, and would tell him myself, if you were not handy. Then, if he chooses, we can have a talk about it! But now, Molly, what am I to do?”
“You still feel as if you had a call to literature, Walter?”
“I have no pleasure in any other kind of work.”
“Might not that be because you have not tried anything else?”
“I don’t know. I am drawn to nothing else.”
“Well, it seems to me that a man who would like to make a saddle, must first have some pig-skin to make it of! Have you any pig-skin, Walter?”
“I see well enough what you mean!”
“A man must want long leisure for thought before he can have any material for his literary faculty to work with.