[Illustration: 'HE AND YOU HAD TO CARRY LISA WEBER ACROSS THE STAGE']
'That's the old fellow,' I reply; 'I owe a good deal to him, and so do you. I used to read bits of you to him in a whisper as we stood in the bar; and he always had one formula of praise for you: "It's damned clever, young 'un; damned clever. I shouldn't have thought it of you."
'And that reminds me,' I continue--I hesitate a little here, for I fear what I am about to say may offend him--'what have you done to yourself since I wrote you? I was looking you over the other day, and really I could scarcely recognise you. You were full of brilliancy and originality when you were in manuscript. What have you done with it all?'
By some mysterious process he contrives to introduce an extra twist into the squint with which he is regarding me, but makes no reply, and I continue:
'Take, for example, that gem I lighted upon one drizzly night in Portland Place. I remember the circumstance distinctly. I had been walking the deserted streets, working at you; my note-book in one hand and a pencil in the other. I was coming home through Portland Place, when suddenly, just beyond the third lamp-post from the Crescent, there flashed into my brain a thought so original, so deep, so true, that involuntarily I exclaimed: "My God, what a grand idea!" and a coffee-stall keeper, passing with his barrow just at that moment, sang out: "Tell it us, guv'nor. There ain't many knocking about."
'I took no notice of the man, but hurried on to the next lamp-post to jot down that brilliant idea before I should forget it; and the moment I reached home I pulled you out of your drawer and copied it out on to your pages, and sat long staring at it, wondering what the world would say when it came to read it. Altogether I must have put into you nearly a dozen startlingly original thoughts. What have you done with them? They are certainly not there now.'
Still he keeps silence, and I wax indignant at the evident amusement with which he regards my accusation.
'And the bright wit, the rollicking humour with which I made your pages sparkle, where are they?' I ask him, reproachfully; 'those epigrammatic flashes that, when struck, illumined the little room with a blaze of sudden light, showing each cobweb in its dusty corner, and dying out, leaving my dazzled eyes groping for the lamp; those grand jokes at which I myself, as I made them, laughed till the rickety iron bedstead beneath me shook in sympathy with harsh metallic laughter; where are they, my friend? I have read you through, page by page, and the thoughts in you are thoughts that the world has grown tired of thinking; at your wit one smiles, thinking that anyone could think it wit; and your humour your severest critic could hardly accuse of being very new. What has happened to you? What wicked fairy has bewitched you? I poured gold into your lap, and you yield me back only crumpled leaves.'