"Yes, my little dog's dead!"

"Well, Joe, I'm sorry to hear your little dog's dead. What was the matter with your little dog?"

"My little dog died last week."

"Yes, your little dog died last week?..."

"He swallowed a tape-measure!..."

"Good heavens, your little dog swallowed a tape-measure?"

"Yes, my little dog swallowed a tape measure, and HE DIED BY INCHES!"_

Cream sat down when he had finished giving his performance. "That's how they ought to have done it," he said.

"It makes me angry to see men ruining a good story. You see, Mac, you've got to lead up to things. Everything in this world has to be led up to. You can't rush bald-headed at anything. And you've got to get a climax. These back-chat chaps hadn't got a climax. The joke was over before the audience had time to realise it was a joke. See?"

"I see," said John.

A few minutes later, Cream went downstairs to his own room.

"That little man knows just how to get an effect," said Hinde. "The amazing thing about him is that he doesn't know that he can act and that his wife can't!..."

"Why do you call her his wife?" John replied.

"Out of civility," said Hinde. "I don't see that it matters much whether she is or not!"

"That's what Lizzie says."

"Lizzie is an intelligent woman. I hope you don't think I was rude to Lizzie just now?..."

"Oh, no," John answered insincerely.

"I wouldn't hurt Lizzie's feelings for the world," said Hinde. "I'm going to bed now, but you needn't hurry unless you want to. I'm tired, and I shall have a busy day to-morrow. I'll see if there's any work that would suit you on my paper. You ought to have some sort of a job besides scribbling masterpieces. I suppose you left a girl behind you in Ballyards?"

John's face flushed. "No," he replied.

"That's good," Hinde said. "You'll be able to get on with your work instead of wasting time writing letters to a girl. Good-night!"

"Good-night. Mr. Hinde!" said John, suddenly ceremonious.

"Not so much of the Mister. Call me Hinde. I think I'll follow Cream's example and call you Mac!"

"Very well, Hinde," said John.

"We'll go up to town in the morning together, if you like!"

"I would," said John.

VI

John's dreams that night were queerly complicated. Eleanor Moore flitted through a scene on a submarine in which a dog was dying by inches while a naval lieutenant made pa.s.sionate love to an Irish girl called Kitty; and while Eleanor pa.s.sed vaguely from side to side of the submarine, a gigantic piece of red tape came and enveloped her and enveloped John, too, when, unaccountably, he appeared and tried to save her. He felt himself being strangled by red tape, and he knew that Eleanor was being strangled, too. He felt that if only the dog would eat the red tape, both Eleanor and he would be delivered from it, but somehow the Irish girl called Kitty prevented the dog from eating it.

And in the dream, he called pitifully to Eleanor, "She won't let us work up to a climax! She's preventing us from working up to a climax!..."

THE THIRD CHAPTER

I

At the end of a month from the day on which he arrived in London, John MacDermott began to consider his position and ended by finding it in a very unsatisfactory state. He had spent much of his time in sight-seeing, and would have spent more of it, had not Hinde informed him that the only way in which to know a city is to live in it, not as a tourist, but as an ordinary citizen. "Change your lodgings every twelve months," he said, "and go and live in a different part of the town every time you change them. Then you'll get to know London. It's no use tearing round the place like an American ... half an hour here and a couple of minutes there, and a Baedeker never out of your hands.

Americans think they're getting an impression of a country when they're only getting a sick-headache; and when they go home again, they can never remember whether Mont Blanc was a picture they saw in Paris or a London chop-house where they had old English fare at modern English prices. If you want to _know_ St. Paul's Cathedral, don't go there with a guide-book in your hand. Go as one of the congregation!..."

He had sent the ma.n.u.script of his novel to a publisher who had not yet expressed any eagerness to accept it, and he had made a half-hearted effort to write a play for the Creams, but had not been very successful with it, chiefly because he felt contempt for _The Girl Gets Left_ and had little liking for Mrs. Cream. She came to the sitting-room one morning when Hinde was away and her husband was interviewing his agent, and went straight to John, nibbling a pen at the writing desk, and put her arms about his neck.

"Don't do that," he said, disengaging her arms from about him.

"I love you," she replied very intensely.

"I daresay, but I'm not in love with you, Mrs. Cream, and I never will be. I don't like you. I like your wee man, but I don't like you. I think you're an awful humbug of a woman!..."

Mrs. Cream stood still as if she had been suddenly paralysed.

"You don't like me!..." she said at last, utterly incredulous.

"No, I don't."

"Oh!"

She raised her hands, and for a few moments he imagined that she was about to strike him. Then she dropped them to her side again and laughed.

"I don't know whether to hug you or slap you," she said. "You impudent brat!"

"I wouldn't advise you to do either the one or the other," he answered.

She came nearer to him, and laid her hand on his sleeve.

"You're very cold and hard," she said, and then, in a softer voice, she added his name, "John!"

"What's cold about me? Or hard?" he asked.

"Everything. You must know that I feel more for you than for my husband!..."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing, Mrs.