materials for a salad--"

"Aha!" cried I, triumphantly.

"Gomen nasai," begged the deity, "I had not finished. I have seen a
waiter, I say, sorely vexed to bring the materials for a salad which the
maker has--spoiled!"

"Then," demanded I, with icy coldness, "you think that if I permit Them
to supply a few thoughts to carry Them over the dashes They will--"

"Think something you did not think; perhaps something worse," the
effigy finished, calamitously.

"Or better?" I suggested, bitterly.

"Or better," agreed the god. "There is a small number of people (but,
extremely small) who like to supply in full what you suggest in dashes.
It tickles Them tremendously to think that you couldn't have done it so
well; that you trust Them to do it better. Often They are certain that
They have helped you over a place you could not help yourself
over--hence the dash."

"Sometimes," I mused, diffidently, "that is true."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the image, and our mood became more human.

"But, do you mean to say," I asked, "that if I leave John and Jane in
the upper hall, and take them up again in the lower hall, I must
acquaint Them with the fact that John and Jane have been obliged to
traverse the stairway to get away from the one and to reach the other?
Am I permitted no ellipsis in so patent a matter as that?"

"They will expect the stairway," sighed the god.

"And a page for each step, I suppose! How can They differ from me? What
other thought can They have than that John and Jane descended the
stairway to reach the lower hall?"

"There may be a back stairway, or a fire escape," chuckled the deity.

"Then, I suppose, I must spend some pages in telling Them not only that
John and Jane descended the stair, but that they did _not_ descend by
the back stair or the fire escape!"

"It would be better," said the idol. "They can skip it. But They cannot
deny that it is there, as They can if it is not. They would rather skip
what you supply than supply what you skip. One is Their judgment of your
mental caliber--usually too small--the other is your judgment of
Theirs--usually too generous. Ahem! There is a golden mean."

"Besides, however bad for literature it may be," laughed I, "at so much
a word, it is good for me!"

"Well," ventured god, in doubt, "are novels literature?"

"I am not the one to say," I retorted, with some asperity. "I
manufacture them. But I can swear that they are better literature--if
literature at al