He began to talk about indifferent things; we glided out on to a
current of mediocre conversation. The psychical moment, if there were
any such, disappeared.

Someone bearing my name had written to express an intention of offering
personal worship that afternoon. The prospect seemed to please the great
Cal. He was used to such things; he found them pay, I suppose. We began
desultorily to discuss the possibility of the writer's being a relation
of mine; I doubted. I had no relations that I knew of; there was a
phenomenal old aunt who had inherited the acres and respectability of
the Etchingham Grangers, but she was not the kind of person to worship a
novelist. I, the poor last of the family, was without the pale, simply
because I, too, was a novelist. I explained these things to Callan and
he commented on them, found it strange how small or how large, I forget
which, the world was. Since his own apotheosis shoals of Callans had
claimed relationship.

I ate my breakfast. Afterward, we set about the hatching of that
article--the thought of it sickens me even now. You will find it in the
volume along with the others; you may see how I lugged in Callan's
surroundings, his writing-room, his dining-room, the romantic arbour in
which he found it easy to write love-scenes, the clipped trees like
peacocks and the trees clipped like bears, and all the rest of the
background for appropriate attitudes. He was satisfied with any
arrangements of words that suggested a gentle awe on the part of the
writer.

"Yes, yes," he said once or twice, "that's just the touch, just the
touch--very nice. But don't you think...." We lunched after some time.