"But what am I to write about?" For he was always diffident and
unconscious of his power.

"Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?" I retorted. "And you can't
have spent five years at a great public school like Kensingtowe
without one or two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have
them. For whatever the modern theorists say, the main duty of a
story-teller is certainly to tell stories."

"But I thought," he broke in, "that you're always maintaining that
the greatest fiction should be occupied with Subjective Incident."

"Don't interrupt, you argumentative child," I said (you will find
Rupert is impertinent enough in one place to suggest that I have a
tendency to be rude and a tendency to hold forth). "Surely the ideal
story must contain the maximum of Objective Incident with the
maximum of Subjective Incident. Only give us the exciting events of
your schooldays, and describe your thoughts as they happened, and
you will unconsciously reveal what sort of scoundrelly characters
you and your friends were. And when you get to the Gallipoli part,
well, you can give us chiefly your thoughts, for Gallipoli, as far
as dramatic incident is concerned, is well able to shift for
itself."

Little wonder that I was fascinated to read Rupert's final
manuscript. And, when I had finished the last words, I
announced aloud a weighty decision: "We must have a Prologue,
Rupert,"--though, to be sure, my study was empty at the time--"and
it must give pictures of what your three heroes were like, when they
were small, abominable boys."