“Blind?”
“Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary—we'll call it that for compliment's sake—all your literary life you've spent writing about people and things so far off you don't know anything about them. You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do you know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted with?”
“Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except this house, and myself and my books and—and Bayport?”
“That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office to make a dozen books. Write about them.”
“Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with 'By godfrey'?”
“You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake to sell a few copies.”
“Funny! I couldn't write a funny book.”
“Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to talk to you.”
“There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant 'prescription'?”
“No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't—not now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours, there's one mighty good story, at least.”