"Where," cried Pym, turning over the leaves in a panic, "where is the
scene in the burning house?"

"It's out," Tommy explained, "but there is a chapter in its place
about--it's mostly about the beauty of the soul being everything, and
mere physical beauty nothing. Oh, Mr. Pym, sit down and let me read it
to you."

But Pym read it, and a great deal more, for himself. No wonder he
stormed, for the impossible had been made not only consistent, but
unreadable. The plot was lost for chapters. The characters no longer
did anything, and then went and did something else: you were told
instead how they did it. You were not allowed to make up your own mind
about them: you had to listen to the mind of T. Sandys; he described
and he analyzed; the road he had tried to clear through the thicket
was impassable for chips.

"A few more weeks of this," said Pym, "and we should all three be
turned out into the streets."

Tommy went to bed in an agony of mortification, but presently to his
side came Pym.

"Where did you copy this from?" he asked. "'It is when we are thinking
of those we love that our noblest thoughts come to us, and the more
worthy they are of our love the nobler the thought; hence it is that
no one has done the greatest work who did not love God.'"

"I copied it from nowhere," replied Tommy, fiercely; "it's my own."