"
"Very good," I said, bringing my chair down on its fore legs again.
"Are you ready for the cheese?"
"Yes; but won't you eat anything?"
"No, thanks. I am fed upon annoyance just now."
"You are getting thin on it, too," he answered, looking at me. "It's
a pity you are so excitable!"
"It's a pity I was born in this confounded Britain! I should have
got on all right with Parisian readers. But I don't despair even
here. They can reject my MSS., but they can't take out my brains. I
daresay I shall stumble across some man at last with courage enough
to stand by me in the beginning and help me force open the British
public's jaws and cram my ideas down its throat; and that once done,
it will digest them perfectly, for it's a tough old beast, though
very blind. Why on earth has that fellow carried off the champagne?"
"You finished the bottle yourself just this minute!" returned my
father, in surprise.
"Did I? Oh, very likely! Absence of mind!"
"It seems to me if you had a little less of this talent you boast of
you would be considerably the gainer."
"Possibly," I rejoined. "But a gift is a gift. You can't say to
nature, take this back and let me have something more paying!
Besides, I can't admit that for any earthly reason I would change. I
have no desire to be a second-rate writer when I know I am a first!"
"By Jove! if conceit could carry the day!"
"No, there is no conceit," I persisted.
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