vestry. I really think some benefit to Jim might have come out of it all
if only the excitement had lasted a little longer. Unfortunately,
however, just at its height a spicy divorce case cropped up, and Jim was
crowded out and forgotten.

I told the boys this story of mine, after Jephson had done telling his,
and, when I had finished, we found it was nearly one o'clock. So, of
course, it was too late to do any more work to the novel that evening.




CHAPTER IV


We held our next business meeting on my houseboat. Brown was opposed at
first to my going down to this houseboat at all. He thought that none of
us should leave town while the novel was still on hand.

MacShaughnassy, on the contrary, was of opinion that we should work
better on a houseboat. Speaking for himself, he said he never felt more
like writing a really great work than when lying in a hammock among
whispering leaves, with the deep blue sky above him, and a tumbler of
iced claret cup within easy reach of his hand. Failing a hammock, he
found a deck chair a great incentive to mental labour. In the interests
of the novel, he strongly recommended me to take down with me at least
one comfortable deck chair, and plenty of lemons.

I could not myself see any reason why we should not be able to think as
well on a houseboat as anywhere else, and accordingly it was settled that