"Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money,
for the last ten years; been leading a double life?"

"I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can
ever do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with
me--I'm written out."

Jim snorted. "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how old
are you?"

"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--"

"Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote--"

"Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do.
I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight
than he was when he died--yes, older than he would have been if he had
lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
second Methusaleh."

"My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?"

"I expect--" I began, "I expect--" and I concluded with the lame
admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do