"Yes," said Gud, "Go on."
"And my profession has been blasted and ruined utterly."
"And how did that happen?"
"I do not know how it happened," replied the beggar, a baffled look coming into his eyes; "worse yet not even the critics know—but it happened—it happened—the impossible happened."
"Come, come," called Gud, shaking him by the shoulder, "you are babbling, speak up, what happened?"
The beggar looked up at Gud, a glint of horror in his eyes, and murmured slowly: "Someone destroyed the eternal triangle.... There can never be any more novels, ... nor plays ... nor movies ... nor realism ... nor romance ... nor royalties ... nor dinners at the Alhambra with Gwendolyn ... nor.... Please sir, just a copper, I am old and lame."
"Cheer up," encouraged Gud, "I feel it my duty to help you. Was this triangle that seemed to have been the life of your business equilateral or isosceles?"
"Neither," replied the beggar, now with the bearing of a true novelist, "it was the eternal triangle which is a plot of a certain very literary relation of the sexes, in which three individuals form the angles."
"Why just three?" asked Gud.
"It seems that three sell best," said the novelist. "Two do not interest the reader, and four, five or more tire him; three characters sell best, which is why such a triangle is called eternal."