Davenport's hallucination, as you call it."

Mr. Bagley gazed at Larcher for a few moments in silence, as if not
knowing exactly what to make of him, or what manner to use toward him. He
seemed at last to decide against a wrathful attitude, and replied:

"I suppose you're a very unbiased judge, and a very superior person all
round. But nobody's asking for your opinion, and I guess it wouldn't
count for much if they did. The public has long ago made up its mind
about Mr. Davenport's little delusion."

"As one of 'the public,' perhaps I have a right to dispute that,"
retorted Larcher. "Men don't have such delusions."

"Oh, don't they? That's as much as you know about the eccentricities of
human nature,--and yet you presume to call yourself a writer. I guess you
don't know the full circumstances of this case. Davenport himself admits
that he was very ill at the time I disposed of the rights of that play.
We were in each other's confidence then, and I had read the play to him,
and talked it over with him, and he had taken a very keen interest in it,
as any chum would. And then this illness came on, just when the marketing
of the piece was on the cards. He was out of his head a good deal during
his illness, and I s'pose that's how he got the notion he was the author.
As it was, I gave him five hundred dollars as a present, to celebrate the
acceptance of the piece. And I gave him that at once, too--half the amount
of the money paid on acceptance, it was; for anything I knew then, it
might have been half of all I should ever get for the play, because
nobody could predict how it would pan out. Well, I've never borne him an
ounce of malice for his delusion. Maybe at this very moment he still
honestly thinks himself the author of that play; but I've always stood by