“Oh,” he almost passionately sighed, “if I were only, pen in hand, one of you chaps!”
“That would be a great chance for you of course. But why should you despise us chaps for not doing what you can’t do yourself?”
“Can’t do?” He opened his eyes. “Haven’t I done it in twenty volumes? I do it in my way,” he continued. “You don’t do it in yours.”
“Ours is so devilish difficult,” I weakly observed.
“So is mine. We each choose our own. There’s no compulsion. You won’t come down and smoke?”
“No. I want to think this thing out.”
“You’ll tell me then in the morning that you’ve laid me bare?”
“I’ll see what I can do; I’ll sleep on it. But just one word more,” I added. We had left the room—I walked again with him a few steps along the passage. “This extraordinary ‘general intention,’ as you call it—for that’s the most vivid description I can induce you to make of it—is then generally a sort of buried treasure?”
His face lighted. “Yes, call it that, though it’s perhaps not for me to do so.”
“Nonsense!” I laughed. “You know you’re hugely proud of it.”