Mr. Follett: Why should I take any more chances than I have to with my contemporaries? I pick them pretty carefully, I can tell you.
Mr. Hergesheimer: I shall write a novel to be published after my death. There was Henry Adams. He stipulated that The Education of Henry Adams should not be published until after his death; and everybody says it is positively brilliant.
Mr. Follett (relieved): That is a wise decision. But don’t be disheartened. I’ll probably be able to get around to you in ten years, anyway. (Mr. Hergesheimer bows and retires.)
Clerk Phelps: John Galsworthy!
Mr. Follett (brightening): Some of the Englishmen! This is better! Besides, I know all about Galsworthy.
Mr. Galsworthy (coming forward): I feel much honored.
Counsel for the Prosecution: If the court please, I must state that for some time now Mr. Galsworthy has been published serially in a magazine with a circulation of one digit and six ciphers. Or one cipher and six digits, I cannot remember which.
Mr. Brownell: What, six? Then he has more readers than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There are only five fingers on a hand. I think this is conclusive.
Mr. Boynton: Oh, decidedly.
Mr. Follett: But I put him in my book on modern novelists, all of whom were hand picked.