"Why?"
"I'm not going to pander to the curiosity of housemaids," he replied rather irritably.
"What do you do with your waste paper, then?"
"Never have any," he said, with his eyes on Jaffery's letter.
"Good Lord!" I cried. "Do you pigeon-hole bills and money-lenders' circulars and second-hand booksellers' catalogues and all their wrappers?"
He folded up the letter, took me by the arm and regarded me with a smile of forced patience.
"My dear Hilary, can't you ever understand that this room is just a workshop and nothing else? Here I think of nothing but my novel. I would as soon think of conducting my social correspondence in the bathroom. If you want to see the waste-paper basket where I throw my bills and unanswered letters from duchesses, and the desk—I share it with Doria—where I dash off my brilliant replies to money-lenders, come into the drawing-room. There, also, I shall be able to give you a drink."
My eyes, following an unconscious glance from his, fell upon a new and hitherto unnoticed object—a little table, now startlingly obvious, in a corner of the all but unfurnished room, bearing a tray with half full decanter, syphon and glass.
"You've got all I want here," said I.
"No. That's mere stimulant. Sapit lucernam. It has a horrible flavour of midnight oil. There's not what you understand by a drink in it. Let's get out of the accursed hole."