Part 16 (2/2)

”Quite all right,” we answered. We said good-bye very gently and pa.s.sed out. We felt somehow as if we had touched a higher life. ”Such,”

we murmured, as we looked about the ancient campus, ”are the men of science: are there, perhaps, any others of them round this morning that we might interview?”

IV. WITH OUR TYPICAL NOVELISTS

Edwin and Ethelinda Afterthought--Husband and Wife--In their Delightful Home Life.

It was at their beautiful country place on the Woonagansett that we had the pleasure of interviewing the Afterthoughts. At their own cordial invitation, we had walked over from the nearest railway station, a distance of some fourteen miles. Indeed, as soon as they heard of our intention they invited us to walk. ”We are so sorry not to bring you in the motor,” they wrote, ”but the roads are so frightfully dusty that we might get dust on our chauffeur.” This little touch of thoughtfulness is the keynote of their character.

The house itself is a delightful old mansion giving on a wide garden, which gives in turn on a broad terrace giving on the river.

The Eminent Novelist met us at the gate. We had expected to find the author of _Angela Rivers_ and _The Garden of Desire_ a pale aesthetic type (we have a way of expecting the wrong thing in our interviews). We could not resist a shock of surprise (indeed we seldom do) at finding him a burly out-of-door man weighting, as he himself told us, a hundred stone in his stockinged feet (we think he said stone).

He shook hands cordially.

”Come and see my pigs,” he said.

”We wanted to ask you,” we began, as we went down the walk, ”something about your books.”

”Let's look at the pigs first,” he said. ”Are you anything of a pig man?”

We are always anxious in our interviews to be all things to all men. But we were compelled to admit that we were not much of a pig man.

”Ah,” said the Great Novelist, ”perhaps you are more of a dog man?”

”Not altogether a dog man,” we answered.

”Anything of a bee man?” he asked.

”Something,” we said (we were once stung by a bee).

”Ah,” he said, ”you shall have a go at the beehives, then, right away?”

We a.s.sured him that we were willing to postpone a go at the beehives till later.

”Come along, then, to the styes,” said the Great Novelist, and he added, ”Perhaps you're not much of a breeder.”

We blushed. We thought of the five little faces around the table for which we provide food by writing our interviews.

”No,” we said, ”we were not much of a breeder.”

”Now then,” said the Great Novelist as we reached our goal, ”how do you like this stye?”

”Very much indeed,” we said.

”I've put in a new tile draining--my own plan. You notice how sweet it keeps the stye.”

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