"Well, you see, I did let him down when I left him. Besides, it isn't altogether him. There's Fanny."
"Fanny? She'd love you to write your book."
"I know she'd think she would. But she wouldn't like it if it made
Horatio look a fool."
"But he's bound to look a fool in any case."
"True. I might give him a year, or two years."
"Well, then, my work's cut out for me. I shall have to make Horatio go on and finish quick, so as not to keep you waiting."
"He'll get sick of it. He'll make you go on with it."
"Me?"
"Practically, and quarrel with every word you write. Unless you can write so like Horatio that he'll think he's done it himself. And then, you know, he won't have a word of mine left in. You'll have to take me out. And we're so mixed up together that I don't believe even he could sort us. You see, in order to appease him, I got into the way of giving my sentences a Waddingtonian twist. If only I could have kept it up—"
"I'll have to lick the thing into shape somehow."