"It's a good story, Gibberts. All your stories are good," said the
editor, carelessly.

Gibberts started to his feet, and swore.

"Do you mean to say," he thundered, "that you see nothing in that story
different from any I or any one else ever wrote? Hang it, Shorely, you
wouldn't know a good story if you met it coming up Fleet Street! Can't
you see that story is written with a man's heart's blood?"

Shorely stretched out his legs and thrust his hands far down in his
trousers' pockets.

"It may have been written as you say, although I thought you called my
attention a moment ago to its type-written character."

"Don't be flippant, Shorely," said Gibberts, relapsing again into
melancholy. "You don't like the story, then? You didn't see anything
unusual in it--purpose, force, passion, life, death, nothing?"

"There is death enough at the end. My objection is that there is too
much blood and thunder in it. Such a tragedy could never happen. No man
could go to a country house and slaughter every one in it. It's
absurd."

Gibberts sprang from his seat and began to pace the room excitedly.
Suddenly he stopped before his friend, towering over him, his long
ulster making him look taller than he really was.

"Did I ever tell you the tragedy of my life? How the property that