"I perceive," said Gud, "that you are a prince of industry. But you are also in a dilemma. If you try the last straw first and break the camel's back, then how can the poor beast go through the eye of the needle?"
Chapter XXI
"Who was that fellow," asked Fidu, "who passed me just now with such a wild, wild look in his eye?"
"That fellow," replied Gud, "was an author who just spent a week-end with me."
"And what did you do to him?" asked Fidu. "He was as crazy as the nebular hypothesis."
"Upon his request I criticized his book, which he insisted on reading to me."
"But what did you say about it?" demanded Fidu, "he looked as locoed as a lop-eared logarithm."
"I made several criticisms. I told him that his plot was choppy, and that most of it was stale; that the work lacked sadly in originality and there was considerable repetition. I said it was very melodramatic in spots and that it had entirely too many murders, and that many of the biggest murderers seemed to escape without punishment. I also told him that it was full of sordid realism and most unhappy endings, that it was overloaded with action, and worst of all, it utterly lacked any evidence of a distinct moral purpose."
"Well no wonder," said Fidu, "that the poor fellow was raving; you made, if I may say so, quite a severe criticism."