“Then you’ll take him?”
“If you agree as to terms.”
“What is them ter-ums?”
“You see my left eye is out?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your son can never become a great writer unless you put his left eye out. If you will think back you will remember that you never saw a great writer whose left eye was not out. This is a matter of economy. A one-eyed writer only needs half as much light as a man with two eyes, and he isn’t half so apt to discover hair-pins in his butter, and buttons in his oyster soup. The best way to put his eye out is to jab a red-hot needle into it.”
“Good grashus!” she exclaimed.
“And you observe that I am bald-headed? You may think that my baldness results from scalp disease, but such is not the case. When a head-writer is bothered to get an idea he scratches his head. Scratching the hair wouldn’t do any good; it’s the scalp he must agitate. The hair is therefore pulled out with a pair of pincers, in order that a man can get right down to the scalp at once, and save time.”
“Can that be possible?”
“All this is strictly true, madam. You also observe that one of my legs is shorter than the other. Without an explanation on my part you would attribute this to some accident. Such is not the case. Every head-writer is located in the fourth storey of the office, and his left leg is shortened three inches to enable him to run up and down stairs. You will have to have a doctor unjoint your son’s leg at the hip, saw it off to the proper length, and then hook it back in its place.”