ith sure hand to the larger phases of the thing he
shaped; and as he worked, hour after hour, he felt, as never before, the
sure and cosmic grasp with which he held life and the affairs of life.
"Overdue" would tell a story that would be true of its particular
characters and its particular events; but it would tell, too, he was
confident, great vital things that would be true of all time, and all
sea, and all life--thanks to Herbert Spencer, he thought, leaning back
for a moment from the table. Ay, thanks to Herbert Spencer and to the
master-key of life, evolution, which Spencer had placed in his hands.

He was conscious that it was great stuff he was writing. "It will go! It
will go!" was the refrain that kept, sounding in his ears. Of course it
would go. At last he was turning out the thing at which the magazines
would jump. The whole story worked out before him in lightning flashes.
He broke off from it long enough to write a paragraph in his note-book.
This would be the last paragraph in "Overdue"; but so thoroughly was the
whole book already composed in his brain that he could write, weeks
before he had arrived at the end, the end itself. He compared the tale,
as yet unwritten, with the tales of the sea-writers, and he felt it to be
immeasurably superior. "There's only one man who could touch it," he
murmured aloud, "and that's Conrad. And it ought to make even him sit up
and shake hands with me, and say, 'Well done, Martin, my boy.'"

He toiled on all day, recollecting, at the last moment, that he was to
have dinner at the Morses'. Thanks to Brissenden, his black suit was out
of pawn and he was again eligible for dinner parties. Down town he
stopped off long enough to run into the library and search for Saleeby's
books. He drew out "The Cycle of Life," and on the car turned to the
essay Norton had mentioned on Spencer. As Martin read, he grew angry.
His face flushed, his jaw set, and unconsciously his hand clenched,
unclenched, and clenched again as if he were taking fresh grips upon some
hateful thing out of which he was squeezing the life. When he left the
car, he strode along the sidewalk as a wrathful man will stride, and he
rang the Morse bell with such viciousness that it roused him to
consciousness of his condition, so that he entered in good nature,
smiling with amusement at himself. No sooner, however, was he inside
than a great depression descended upon him. He fell from the height
where