Humphrey awoke again at eight. Through his open door came a light that was not altogether of the sun.
The incident of the earlier morning came to him in confused form, like a dream.
He sprang out of bed.
There, still bending over the atlas, was Henry. The sheets of paper lay like drifts of snow about him now. His pencil was flying.
He looked up. His face was white and red in spots now. He was grinning, apparently out of sheer happiness.
'Say,' he cried, 'listen to this! It's one I call, The Cauliflowers of the Caliph. Oh, by the way, I've changed the title of the book to Satraps of the Simple.
'The whole book'll be sort of imaginary, like that. It's queer. Just as if it came to be out of the air. Things I never thought of in my life. Only everything I ever knew's going into it. Things I'd forgotten.'
'Hen,' said Humphrey, 'are you stark mad?'
'Me? Why—why no, Hump!' The grin was a thought sheepish now. 'But—well, Bob McGibbon said we needed stuff for the paper.'
'How many stories have you written already?'