thunderstorm.

"That's true enough. Bless my soul, Lasher, that's true enough. They
hardly sell at all. I've written a dozen of them now, 'The Blue Pouncet
Box,' 'The Three-tailed Griffin,' 'The Tree without any Branches,' but
you won't want to be bothered with the names of them. 'The Griffin' went
into two editions, but it was only because the pictures were rather
sentimental. I've often said to myself, 'If a thing doesn't sell in
these days it must be good,' but I've not really convinced myself. I'd
like them to have sold. Always, until now, I've had hopes of the next
one, and thought that it would turn out better, like a woman with her
babies. I seem to have given up expecting that now. It isn't, you know,
being always hard-up that I mind so much, although that, mind you, isn't
pleasant, no, by Jehoshaphat, it isn't. But we would like now and again
to find that other people have enjoyed what one hoped they _would_
enjoy. But I don't know, they always seem too old for children and too
young for grown-ups--my stories, I mean."

It was one of the hardest traits in Mr. Lasher's character, as Hugh well
realised, "to rub it in" over a fallen foe. He considered this his duty;
it was also, I am afraid, a pleasure. "It's a pity," he said, "that
things should not have gone better; but there are so many writers to-day
that I wonder any one writes at all. We live in a practical, realistic
age. The leaders amongst us have decided that every man must gird his
loins and go out to fight his battles with real weapons in a real cause,
not sit dreaming at his windows looking down upon the busy
market-place." (Mr. Lasher loved what he called "images." There were
many in his sermons.) "But, my dear Pidgen, it is in no way too late.
Give up your fairy stories now that they have been proved a failure."