I have given her the forty francs remaining from the sale of my seal and ring, and that, with the three guineas from the Babbler, is enough to carry us on for another month. It is extraordinary how we just manage to scrape along.
I wish to avoid all financial worry just now. My story has taken hold of me and is writing itself at the rate of three thousand words a day. No time now to spend on meticulous considerations of style; as I try to put down my teeming thoughts my pencil cannot travel fast enough. It is the same frenzy of narration with which I rattled off The Haunted Taxicab and its fellow culprits. If at times that newborn conscience of mine gives me qualms, I dull them with the thought that it is just a tale told to amuse and—oh, how I need the money!
And now to come to my novel, Tom, Dick and Harry.
Three cockney clerks on a ten days’ vacation, are tramping over a desolate moor in Wales. Tom is a dreamer with a turn for literature; Dick an adventurer who hates his desk; Harry an entertainer, with remote designs on the stage.
The scenery is wild and rugged. The road winds between great boulders that suggest a prehistoric race. The wind of the moor brings a glow to their cheeks, and their pipes are in full blast. Suddenly outspeaks Tom:
“Wouldn’t it be funny, you fellows, if a man clad in skins were suddenly to dodge out from behind one of these rocks, and we were to find that we were back in the world of a thousand years ago—just as we are now, you know, with all our knowledge of things?”
“It wouldn’t be funny at all,” said Dick. “How could we make use of our knowledge? What would we do for a living?”
“Well,” said Tom thoughtfully, “I think I would go in for the prophecy business. I could foretell things that were going to happen, and—yes, I think I’d try my hand at literary plagiarism. With all my reading I could rehash enough modern yarns to put all the tribal story-tellers out of business. I’d become the greatest yarn-spinner in the world. What would you do, Hal?”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d have any trouble,” said Harry. “I’d become the King’s harper. I think I could vamp on the harp all right. I’d revive all the popular songs of the last ten years, all the minstrel songs, all the sentimental ballads, all the national airs, and I’d set them to topical words. I’d become the greatest minstrel in the world. Now, Dick, it’s your turn.”
Dick considered for so long that they fancied he was at a loss. At last he drew a deep breath.