“I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though.”
“So I gathered. Popular, is he?”
“Very.”
“Satisfied with life?”
“Seems to be.”
“Hum! No one calls HIM a—what is it—quahaug?”
“No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood.”
He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith in the “prescription” which he had promised so emphatically. How could he, or anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself, and I knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah. I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs shortly after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor did he until I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
“Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one of your troubles. You're blind.”