third novel, he declared, would sell; and it would be his best. On that
utterly secure and yet elevated basis he could build afterwards pretty
much as he pleased. I asked him if it wasn't a mistake to put his best so
early in the series? Wouldn't it be more effective if he worked up to it?
But he said No. He'd thought of that. There wasn't anything he hadn't
thought of. That third novel was to start his big sales. And the worst of
a big sale was this, that when you'd caught your public you were bound to
go on giving them the sort of thing you'd caught them with, therefore,
he'd be jolly careful to start 'em with the sort of thing he happened to
like himself, otherwise he'd have to spend the rest of his life knuckling
under to them. He could get a cheaper glory if he chose to try for it;
but a cheaper glory wouldn't satisfy him. That was why he decided to make
for the highest point he could reach in the beginning, so that his very
fallings-off would be glorious and would pay him as no gradual working up
and up could possibly be made to pay. Besides, he wanted his glory and
his pay quick. He couldn't afford to wait a month longer than his third
novel. As for the different quality in the glory it would be years
before anybody but himself could tell the difference, and by the time
they spotted him he'd be at another game. A game in which he defied
anybody to catch him out.

He'd be writing plays.

All this he told me, sitting in an arm-chair in my rooms, with his feet
up on another chair, and smiling, smiling with one side of his mouth
while with the other he smoked innumerable cigarettes. I can see his blue
eyes twinkle still, through the cigarette smoke that obscured him. That
night he had got down to solid business.

It was quite clear that Jevons's business was the business of the