"Why, certainly," it replies effusively. "Take a blot."
And "Dear Uncle Jonathan" is buried with deep mourning.
Haphazard as their outgivings appear to be, I have a theory that they are in reality quite logical; for I have noticed that pens spend most ink on things that are worth most. Thus, a pen that would grudge to disburse a single minim on a cheap sheet of a pad, will gladly expend all it has upon a costly embroidered tablecloth. And it finds the flyleaf of a handsome book (which if separate from the volume it would regard as a mere scrap of paper) amazingly absorbing. If it take a fancy to something large and sumptuous, such as an oriental rug, and yet not have on hand sufficient ink for such an outlay, it will appropriate it with a deposit of spot splash.
However little aptitude a pen may have for writing, it is sure to display rare skill as a fisherman. In the most unpromising inkwell it will catch deep sea monsters that astound you. It will spear great flounders of blotting paper and wriggly eels of string. It will drag up from the bottom wreckage of forgotten times, prehistoric flora and fauna—an antique rubber band, a female tress (perhaps of some ink-nymph long dead or discharged), a tack bent with age, a perfectly preserved shoe button, a less perfectly preserved mummy of a fly.
The perseverance of this follower of Izaak Walton is admirable. It will cast patiently again and again without a single dribble, and then, all at once, it will come struggling triumphantly to the surface with a whale of a June bug it has harpooned. Whereupon, as is the custom with fishermen who write, it will make a grand splurge of its catch on paper.
In order to prevent such piscatorial dippiness, pen fanciers have bred the fountain species, the latest variety of which is self-spilling. Pens of this artificially produced species are very nervous. They have to be handled with extreme care. For example, if one of them is held upside down, all the ink runs to its head, and there is danger of a hemorrhage. Its digestive system is poor: it regurgitates and bubbles at the mouth. The least thing upsets its stomach. If you forget to put its cap on, even in mild weather, it contracts a serious congestion of the throat; with the result that the next letter you write proves dry-point etching.
Taken all in all, pens have a great deal to answer for. The record they have left on the pages of history is a black one. Many a person who has sat down to write something bright and optimistic, has been so disillusioned and embittered by his pen, that he has ended by hacking a hymn of hate or drooling a dirge of despair. Which accounts for most of the world's harsh diplomacy and morbid literature.
Even this essay was originally intended to be cheerful.