confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his
trade, who was said to have put "new blood" into the firm.

This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though
literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his
revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ten
years sooner."

Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her
readers. "It has been a long time for the public to wait," she solemnly
assented.

The publisher smiled. "They haven't waited," he said.

She looked at him strangely. "Haven't waited?"

"No--they've gone off; taken another train. Literature's like a big
railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute.
People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get
to a place when they want to they go somewhere else."

The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of
throbbing silence. At length she said: "Then I am to understand that the
public is no longer interested in--in my grandfather?" She felt as though
heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture.

"Well, it's this way. He's a name still, of course. People don't exactly
want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don't want to spend
two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any
biographical dictionary."