Myra was all interest. "To think of knowing a real live author!" she exclaimed. "I was sure Eddie would be famous some day, but had no idea it would come so soon."
"Don't you wish you had waited for him?" teased Mrs. Allan, laughing happily.
They chatted over the wonderful news until nearly dinner-time, and after they had parted Mrs. Allan sat at the window watching for her husband to come home that she might impart it to him at the earliest moment possible. But when at last he appeared she put off the great moment until after dinner, and then when he was comfortably smoking a fragrant cigar she approached him timidly and placed the letter and the book in his lap without a word.
"What's all this?" he questioned sharply.
She made no reply, but hovered about his chair, too excited to trust herself to speak.
He picked up the letter and read it with a deepening frown, then opened the book and ran his eyes hurriedly down one or two of its pages. At length he spoke:
"So this is the way he's wasting his time and, I dare say, his money too. Will the boy ever amount to anything, I wonder?"
The happiness in Frances Allan's face gave place to quick distress.
"Oh, John," she cried, "Don't you think it amounts to anything for a boy of eighteen to have written and published a book of poetry?"
"Poetry? This stuff is bosh—utter bosh!"