'
'In the meantime,' said Reardon, laying down his pipe, 'suppose
we eat a morsel of something. I'm rather hungry.'
In the early days of his marriage Reardon was wont to offer the
friends who looked in on Sunday evening a substantial supper; by
degrees the meal had grown simpler, until now, in the depth of
his poverty, he made no pretence of hospitable entertainment. It
was only because he knew that Biffen as often as not had nothing
whatever to eat that he did not hesitate to offer him a slice of
bread and butter and a cup of tea. They went into the back room,
and over the Spartan fare continued to discuss aspects of
fiction.
'I shall never,' said Biffen, 'write anything like a dramatic
scene. Such things do happen in life, but so very rarely that
they are nothing to my purpose. Even when they happen,
by-the-bye, it is in a shape that would be useless to the
ordinary novelist; he would have to cut away this circumstance,
and add that. Why? I should like to know. Such conventionalism
results from stage necessities. Fiction hasn't yet outgrown the
influence of the stage on which it originated.
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