"Come in, I tell you!" he said, adding, "you may just as well, because I
have nothing to do for a quarter of an hour." He threw a pen on the table.
"It's one of my very few penances. If I swear when I am at work, I do no
work for a quarter of an hour; so you can keep me company. Sit down there!"
He indicated a chair with his large foot, and I sat down.

My question was soon asked and sooner answered. Father Payne beamed upon me
with an indulgent air, and I said: "May I ask what you were doing?"

"You may," he said. "I rejoice to talk about it. It's my novel."

"Your novel!" I said. "I didn't know you wrote novels. What sort of a book
is it?"

"It's wretched," he said, "it's horrible, it's grotesque! It's more like
all other novels than any book I know. It's written in the most abominable
style; there isn't a single good point about it. The incidents are all
hackneyed, there isn't a single lifelike character in it, or a single good
description, or a single remark worth making. I should think it's the worst
book ever written. Will you hear a bit of it? Do, now! only a short bit. I
should love to read it to you."

"Yes, of course," I said, "there is nothing I should like better."

He read a passage. It was very bad indeed, I couldn't have imagined that an
able man could have written such stuff. I had an awful feeling that I had
heard every word before.

"There," he said at last, "that's rather a favourable specimen. What do you