The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collaborators, by Robert S. Hichens

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Title: The Collaborators
1896

Author: Robert S. Hichens

Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23421]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLLABORATORS ***

Produced by David Widger

THE COLLABORATORS.

By Robert S. Hichens

1896

I.

"Why shouldn't we collaborate?" said Henley in his most matter-of-fact
way, as Big Ben gave voice to the midnight hour. "Everybody does it
nowadays. Two heads may be really better than one, although I seldom
believe in the truth of accepted sayings. Your head is a deuced good
one, Andrew; but--now don't get angry--you are too excitable and too
intense to be left quite to yourself, even in book-writing, much less in
the ordinary affairs of life. I think you were born to collaborate, and
to collaborate with me. You can give me everything I lack, and I can
give you a little of the sense of humour, and act as a drag upon the
wheel."

"None of the new humour, Jack; that shall never appear in a book with
my name attached to it. Dickens I can tolerate. He is occasionally
felicitous. The story of 'The Dying Clown,' for instance, crude as it is
it has a certain grim tragedy about it. But the new humour came from the
pit, and should go--to the _Sporting Times_."

"Now, don't get excited. The book is not in proof yet--perhaps never
will be. You need not be afraid. My humour will probably be old enough.
But what do you y to the idea?"

Andrew Trenchard sat for awhile in silent consideration. His legs were
stretched out, and his slippered feet rested on the edge of the brass
fender. A nimbus of smoke surrounded his swarthy features, his shock of
black hair, his large, rather morose, dark eyes. He was a man of about
twenty-five, with an almost horribly intelligent face, so observant that
he tried people, so acute that he frightened them. His intellect was
never for a moment at rest, unless in sleep. He devoured himself with
his own emotions, and others with his analysis of theirs. His mind was
always crouching to spring, except when it was springing. He lived an
irregular