began to talk freely with his daughter.

'Finished the authoresses?'

'Not quite.'

'No hurry. When you have time I want you to read Ditchley's new
book, and jot down a selection of his worst sentences. I'll use
them for an article on contemporary style; it occurred to me this
afternoon.'

He smiled grimly. Mrs Yule's face exhibited much contentment,
which became radiant joy when her husband remarked casually that
the custard was very well made to-day. Dinner over, he rose
without ceremony and went off to his study.

The man had suffered much and toiled stupendously. It was not
inexplicable that dyspepsia, and many another ill that literary
flesh is heir to, racked him sore.

Go back to the days when he was an assistant at a bookseller's in
Holborn. Already ambition devoured him, and the genuine love of
knowledge goaded his brain. He allowed himself but three or four
hours of sleep; he wrought doggedly at languages, ancient and
modern; he tried his hand at metrical translations; he planned
tragedies. Practically he was living in a past age; his literary
ideals were formed on the study of Boswell.

The head assistant in the shop went away to pursue a business
which had come into his hands on the death of a relative; it was