"And all a man needs, then, to be an author is an eye and a type-
writing machine?" asked the Professor.

"And a regiment of detectives," drawled Dr. Kelly, the young surgeon,
"to follow his characters about."

Harley sighed. Surely these men were unsympathetic.

"I can't expect you to grasp the idea exactly," he said, "and I can't
explain it to you, because you'd become irreverent if I tried."

"No, we won't," said Kelly. "Go on and explain it to us--I'm bored,
and want to be amused."

So Harley went on and tried to explain how the true realist must be
an inspired sort of person, who can rise above purely physical
limitations; whose eye shall be able to pierce the most impenetrable
of veils; to whom nothing in the way of obtaining information as to
the doings of such specimens of mankind as he has selected for his
pages is an insurmountable obstacle.

"Your author, then, is to be a mixture of a New York newspaper
reporter and the Recording Angel?" suggested Kelly.

"I told you you'd become irreverent," said Harley; "nevertheless,
even in your irreverence, you have expressed the idea. The writer
must be omniscient as far as the characters of his stories are
concerned--he must have an eye which shall see all that they do, a
mind sufficiently analytical to discern what their motives are, and
the courage to put it all down truthfully, neither adding nor