He frowned, fidgeted with his feet.
"I wish to God I hadn't to work at all," said he. "I hate it! I'd sooner be a coal-heaver."
"Bosh!" said I. "I know that you're an essentially idle beggar; but you're as proud as Punch of your fame and success and all that it means to you."
"What does it mean after all?"
"If you talk in that pessimistic way," I said, "you'll make me cry. Don't. It means every blessed thing in the world to you. At any rate it has meant Doria."
"I suppose that's true," he grunted. "And I suppose I am essentially idle. But I wish the damned thing would get written of its own accord. It's having to sit down at that infernal desk that gets on my nerves. I have the same horrible apprehension of it—always have—as one has before a visit to the dentist, when you know he's going to drill hell into you."
"Why do you work in such a depressing room?" I asked. "If I were shut up alone in it, I would stick my nose in the air and howl like a dog."
"Oh, the room's all right," said he. Then he looked away absently and murmured as if to himself, "It isn't the room."
"Then what is it?" I persisted.
He turned with a dreary sort of smile. "It's the born butterfly being condemned to do the work of the busy bee."