“I tried my best to pull it off for you; and my brother wants to come—­he’s keen to talk to you and see what he can do.  But you see he’s so tremendously in demand.  He’ll try for another Sunday later on.”

Winterman nodded with a whimsical gesture.  “Oh, he’ll find me here.  I shall work my time out slowly.”  He pointed to the scattered sheets on the kitchen table which formed his writing desk.

“Not slowly enough to suit us,” Wade answered hospitably.  “Only, if Howland could have come he might have given you a tip or two—­put you on the right track—­shown you how to get in touch with the public.”

Winterman, his hands in his sagging pockets, lounged against the bare pine walls, twisting his pipe under his beard.  “Does your brother enjoy the privilege of that contact?” he questioned gravely.

Wade stared a little.  “Oh, of course Howland’s not what you’d call a popular writer; he despises that kind of thing.  But whatever he says goes with—­well, with the chaps that count; and every one tells me he’s written the book on Pellerin.  You must read it when you get back your eyes.”  He paused, as if to let the name sink in, but Winterman drew at his pipe with a blank face.  “You must have heard of Pellerin, I suppose?” the doctor continued.  “I’ve never read a word of him myself:  he’s too big a proposition for me.  But one can’t escape the talk about him.  I have him crammed down my throat even in hospital.  The internes read him at the clinics.  He tumbles out of the nurses’ pockets.  The patients keep him under their pillows.  Oh, with most of them, of course, it’s just a craze, like the last new game or puzzle:  they don’t understand him in the least.  Howland says that even now, twenty-five years after his death, and with his books in everybody’s hands, there are not twenty people who really understand Pellerin; and Howland ought to know, if anybody does.  He’s—­what’s their great word?—­interpreted him.  You must get Howland to put you through a course of Pellerin.”

And as the young men, having taken leave of Winterman, retraced their way across the lawn, Wade continued to develop the theme of his brother’s accomplishments.

“I wish I could get Howland to take an interest in Winterman:  this is the third Sunday he’s chucked us.  Of course he does get bored with people consulting him about their writings—­but I believe if he could only talk to Winterman he’d see something in him, as we do.  And it would be such a god-send to the poor man to have some one to advise him about his work.  I’m going to make a desperate effort to get Howland here next Sunday.”