'All I did was to write a letter, and chance made it effective.'

'My view of the case, Reardon, is that you are simply ill.'

'Certainly I am; but the ailment is desperately complicated. Tell
me: do you think I might possibly get any kind of stated work to
do? Should I be fit for any place in a newspaper office, for
instance?'

'I fear not. You are the last man to have anything to do with
journalism.'

'If I appealed to my publishers, could they help me?'

'I don't see how. They would simply say: Write a book and we'll
buy it.'

'Yes, there's no help but that.'

'If only you were able to write short stories, Fadge might be
useful.'

'But what's the use? I suppose I might get ten guineas, at most,
for such a story. I need a couple of hundred pounds at least.
Even if I could finish a three-volume book, I doubt if they would
give me a hundred again, after the failure of "The Optimist"; no,
they wouldn't.'

'But to sit and look forward in this way is absolutely fatal, my
dear fellow. Get to work at your two-volume story. Call it "The