MASON TALKS AGAIN
Not seeing Mason for some days, Sanborn took a walk one night, and turned up about nine o'clock at his rooms. He found him sitting before his open grate fire, smoking meditatively.
"Hello, Sanborn! Glad you came over." He did not rise, but Sanborn was untroubled by that.
"Got another chapter turned off?"
"Possibly. Fill up and draw up."
Sanborn obediently filled a pipe and drew up a chair.
"You look tired."
"I am. I have written a column editorial on the labor question, one on the Chinese treaty, a special article on irrigation for the Sunday issue, not counting odd paragraphs on silver, anarchy, and other little chores of my daily grind."
"That's not as bad as poulticing people."
"Bad! There's nothing any worse, and my novelistic friends are always saying, 'Why don't you turn in and finish up your novel?' What can an intellectual prostitute do?"