'Ah!'
'Enough,' continued Trist gravely, 'to put into something secure, and ensure a steady income in the piping times of peace.'
The editor clasped his large hands gravely with fingers interlocked, and placed them on the desk in front of him.
'That,' he said, with raised eyebrows, 'is bad.'
'But natural,' suggested the younger man.
'When a man of your age suddenly expresses a desire for something which...'
'He has never had,' remarked Trist meekly.
'Which he has never had or wished for, it is suggestive of a change—a radical change—in that man's plan of life.'
Trist raised his square shoulders slightly and respectfully.
'Now,' continued the editor, in his most solid and convincing way, 'you—Theodore Trist—are the most brilliant war-correspondent of a brilliant and war-like generation. You are, besides that, a clever fellow—perhaps an exceptionally clever fellow. But, my friend, there are many clever fellows in the world. It is an age of keen competition, and the first man in the race must never look back to see whose step it is that he hears behind him. We live in a time of specialities, and we must be content with specialities. You are a born war-correspondent, and I suppose your ambition is to prove that you can do something else—write a novel, or edit a religious periodical—eh?'