“Yes, and I read it, too.”
“No! Did you, now? That’s true friendship. Well, how did you like it? Did you get your money’s worth?”
I hesitated a moment and then answered:
“It was clever, of course. Anything that you write would be sure to be that. But it didn’t appear to get down to hard-pan or to take a firm grip on life—did it?”
“Ah, that’s what the critics said,—only they’ve got a set of phrases for expressing it. They said it was amateurish, that it was in a falsetto key, etc.”
“Well, how does it strike you, yourself? You know that it didn’t come out of the deep places of your nature, don’t you? You feel that you’ve got better behind?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A man does what he can. I rather think it’s the best I can do at present.”
“Why don’t you go at some more serious work; some magnum opus that would bring your whole strength into play?”
“A magnum opus, my dear fellow!” replied Clay, with a shade of irritation in his voice. “You talk as if a magnum opus could be done for the wishing. Why don’t you do a magnum opus, then?”
“Why don’t I? Oh, I’m not a literary fellow—never professed to be. What a question!”