"A trifle," said the other; "what we scribblers call 'hack.'"
Mr. Hopworthy's broad mouth contracted, and he might have been observed to suffer from some suppressed emotion.
"But you wrote it, did you not?" he asked, beneath his breath.
"I dashed it off in twenty minutes," said the other.
"But it was yours?" insisted Mr. Hopworthy.
"When I wrote that little story——" said Mr. Archer Ferris.
"'The Story of Ignatius, the Almoner?'" prompted Mr. Hopworthy, with unnecessary insistence.
"'The Story of Ignatius, the Almoner,'" repeated Mr. Ferris, flushing slightly, while Mr. Hopworthy seemed to clutch the table to keep himself from bounding upward.
"I was convinced of it!" he cried. "No other hand could have penned it. The pith, the pathos, passion, power, and purpose of the tale were masterly, and yet it was so simple and sincere, so logical, so convincing, so inevitable, so——"
"Spare me," protested Mr. Ferris, not at all displeased. "But it had a sort of rudimentary force, I own."