“Oh, all right. If you’re shy about it,” responded the reporter good-humoredly. “But you must have thought of writing as a profession.”
“Vaguely, some day.”
“You don’t talk much like a country station-agent. And you don’t act like one. And, judging from this room”—he looked about at the well-filled book-shelves—“you don’t look like one. Quite a library. Harvey Wheelwright! Lord! I might have known. Great stuff, isn’t it?”
“Do you think so?”
“Do I think so! I think it’s the damndest spew that ever got into print. But it sells; millions. It’s the piety touch does it. The worst of it is that Wheelwright is a thoroughly decent chap and not onto himself a bit. Thinks he’s a grand little booster for righteousness, sweetness and light, and all that. I had to interview him once. Oh, if I could just have written about him and his stuff as it really is!”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Why, he’s a popular literary hero out our way, and the biggest advertised author in the game. I’d look fine to the business office, knocking their fat graft, wouldn’t I!”
“I don’t believe I understand.”
“No; you wouldn’t. Never mind. You will if you ever get into the game. Hello! This is something different again. ‘The Undying Voices.’ Do you go in for poetry?”
“I like to read it once in a while.”