“I hope Mr. Ray is no better than the rest of us; but he may be; you must make your arraignment and condemnation conditional, at any rate. He’s an author in petto, as yet; Chapley may never publish him.”
“Then why,” said the old man, irascibly, “did you speak of him as you did to Chapley? It was misleading.”
“In the world you’ve come back to, my dear friend,” said Kane, “you’ll find that we have no time to refine upon the facts. We can only sketch the situation in large, bold outlines. Perhaps I wished to give Mr. Ray a hold upon Chapley by my premature recognition of him as an author, and make the wicked publisher feel that there was already a wide general impatience to see Mr. Ray’s book.”
“That would have been very corrupt, Kane,” said the other. “But I owe Mr. Ray an apology.”
Ray found his tongue. “Perhaps you won’t think so when you see my novel.”
“A novel! Oh, I have no time to read novels!” the old man burst out. “A practical man”—
“Nor volumes of essays,” said Kane, picking up a book from the table at his elbow. “Really, as a measure of self-defence, I must have the leaves of my presentation copies cut, at any rate. I must sacrifice my taste to my vanity. Then I sha’n’t know when the grateful recipients haven’t opened them.”
“I’ve no time to read books of any kind”—the old man began again.
“You ought to set up reviewer,” Kane interposed again.
“Oh, I’ve looked into your essays, Kane, here and there. The literature is of a piece with the affectation of the uncut edges: something utterly outdated and superseded. It’s all as impertinent as the demand you make that the reader should do the work of a bookbinder, and cut your leaves.”