"I have been on intellectual munitions," replied Simmons. "And now all my editors write to me, 'Get away from the War.' I have to transfer my machinery to peace work. I have to turn away from the production of the German spy. Think of it. I have almost lived on him for years. I have created hundreds of him during the War. All my laboriously acquired knowledge of German terms—like 'Schweinhund,' you know—goes for nothing. I shall have to make all my villains Bolsheviks. That will require close study of Russia. All my old Russian knowledge goes for nothing. They have abolished the knout and exile to Siberia. I have to start afresh.
"Then look at my heroes. I have mastered the second lieutenant. My typewriter almost automatically writes 'old top,' 'old soul,' 'old bean,' 'old egg.' All my study of this type is thrown away. And heroines—why, I shall have to study dress again. The hospital nurse is done for; the buxom proportions of the land-girl avail me no more. My dear fellow, it will be six months before I can deal with women's costume competently.
"And plots. How the War simplified everything. The Zep, a failure in fact, was a splendid success in fiction. The awkward people could be wiped out so simply. Then one's villains could die gallantly—a bit of good in the worst of men, you know—whispering a hurried confession in the ears of the Company Sergeant-Major in the front trenches.
"Then, again, all misunderstandings were explained when the V.C. looked up from his hospital bed. 'Eric,' she gushed, 'you here!' And from that moment he needed no more medicine. My dear fellow, we shall want new plots now; real plots and new characters. It will be a long time before I can return to my pre-war standard of strong, silent, masterful millionaires from the backwoods. Haven't I a right to seek compensation from the Government for checking my intellectual output?"
"I think the Government ought to pay you ten pounds for every week in which you don't write," I said.
Simmons shook me warmly by the hand.
The next day he cut me dead. I believe that Simmons, though an author of popular fiction, must have been thinking.