"When I say that I am an author," continued Brown seriously, "I mean in the higher sense."
"Oh. What is the higher sense, Mr. Brown?" she asked.
"The higher sense does not necessarily imply authorship. I do not mean that I am a mere writer. I have written very little."
"Oh," she said.
"Very little," repeated Brown combatively. "You will look in vain among the crowded counters piled high with contemporary fiction for anything from my pen."
"Then perhaps I had better not look," she said so simply that Brown was a trifle disappointed in her.
"Some day, however," he said, "you may search, and, perhaps, not wholly in vain."
"Oh, you are writing a book!"
"Yes," he said, "I am, so to speak, at work on a novel."
"Might one, with discretion, make further inquiry concerning your novel, Mr. Brown?"