More than this, he saw in the story—or in the great stillness which the story brought him—something of the sort of thing he meant to write some day. Nothing exactly like this, of course, but the achievement of this unfettered ease. It made him want to start out at once to find the Little Man. It made him hear from Africa something like a personal call. He let himself dream for a moment. Wouldn’t it be great, his mind-made picture ran, when he had done a real story of his own—wouldn’t it be great to deliver it like this (or perhaps sockless) and make it sell itself? Halfway through, he arose and dumped the sheets he had read before Higgins’ spectacles, saying with slow-measured calm:
“She breathes. She’s a leaping trout!”
“Get out,” said Higgins softly.
“That’s only half,” said Cobden.
“Where’s the rest?”
“I’ve got it in there—not read yet.”
“And you bring this to me?”
“He’s waiting. This story will finish itself. I know it will march straight.”
While he read the second half, Dicky heard Higgins thresh and mutter, and finally call for the rest—old sore-eyed Higgins, who knew a story when he saw one, who had read his eyes out on poor stories looking for the Story of the Age....
Dicky went back to the reception room.