no wish to read the manuscript when it came back in disgrace; he had merely grinned, said something about boomerangs, and quoted Horace with relish.  Whereas now, before the book in its neat case, lettered with another man’s name, his approbation of the writing and his disapproval of the “scoundrels,” as he called them, were loudly expressed, and, though a good smoker, he blew and puffed vehemently at his pipe.

“You’ll expose the rascals, of course, won’t you?” he said again.

“Oh no, I think not.  It really doesn’t matter much, does it?  After all, there are some very weak things in the book; doesn’t it strike you as ‘young?’ I have been thinking of another plan, but I haven’t done much with it lately.  But I believe I’ve got hold of a really good idea this time, and if I can manage to see the heart of it I hope to turn out a manuscript worth stealing.  But it’s so hard to get at the core of an idea—­the heart, as I call it,” he went on after a pause.  “It’s like having a box you can’t open, though you know there’s something wonderful inside.  But I do believe I’ve a fine thing in my hands, and I mean to try my best to work it.”

Lucian talked with enthusiasm now, but his father, on his side, could not share these ardors.  It was his part to be astonished at excitement over a book that was not even begun, the mere ghost of a book flitting elusive in the world of unborn masterpieces and failures.  He had loved good letters, but he shared unconsciously in the general belief that literary attempt is always pitiful, though he did not subscribe to the other half of the popular faith—­that literary success is a matter of very little importance.  He thought well of books, but only of printed books; in manuscripts he put no faith, and the paulo-post-futurum tense he could not in any manner conjugate.  He returned once more to the topic of palpable interest.

“But about this dirty trick these fellows have played on you.  You won’t sit quietly and bear it, surely?  It’s only a question of writing to the papers.”

“They wouldn’t put the letter in.  And if they did, I should only get laughed at.  Some time ago a man wrote to the Reader, complaining of his play being stolen.  He said that he had sent a little one-act comedy to Burleigh, the great dramatist, asking for his advice.  Burleigh gave his advice and took the idea for his own very successful play.  So the man said, and I daresay it was true enough.  But the victim got nothing by his complaint.  ‘A pretty state of things,’ everybody said.  ’Here’s a Mr. Tomson, that no one has ever heard of, bothers Burleigh with his rubbish, and then accuses him of petty larceny.  Is it likely that a man of Burleigh’s position, a playwright who can make his five thousand a year easily, would borrow from an unknown Tomson?’ I should think it very likely, indeed,” Lucian went on, chuckling, “but that was their verdict.  No; I don’t think I’ll write to the papers.”