ke a cold dip as soon as you are up--even in
winter?"

"I do."

"You prefer, no doubt," we said, with a dejection that we could not
conceal, "to have water with a good coat of ice over it?"

"Oh, certainly!"

We said no more. We have long understood the reasons for our own failure
in life, but it was painful to receive a renewed corroboration of it.
This ice question has stood in our way for forty-seven years.

The Great Novelist seemed to note our dejection.

"Come to the house," he said, "my wife will give you a cup of tea."

In a few moments we had forgotten all our troubles in the presence of
one of the most charming chatelaines it has been our lot to meet.

We sat on a low stool immediately beside Ethelinda Afterthought, who
presided in her own gracious fashion over the tea-urn.

"So you want to know something of my methods of work?" she said, as she
poured hot tea over our leg.

"We do," we answered, taking out our little book and recovering
something of our enthusiasm. We do not mind hot tea being poured over us
if people treat us as a human being.

"Can you indicate," we continued, "what method you follow in beginning
one of your novels?"

"I always begin," said Ethelinda Afterthought, "with a study."

"A study?" we queried.

"Yes. I mean a study of actual facts. Take, for example, my _Leaves from
the Life of a Steam Laundrywoman_--more tea?"

"No, no," we said.

"Well, to make that book I first worked two years in a laundry."

"Two years!" we exclaimed. "And why?"

"To get the atmosphere."

"The steam?" we questioned.

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Afterthought, "I did that separately. I took a
course in steam at a technical school."

"Is it possible?" we said, our heart beginning to sing again. "Was all
that necessary?"

"I don't see how one could do it otherwise. The story opens, as no doubt
you remember--tea?--in the boiler room of the laundry."

"Yes," we said, moving our leg--"no, thank you."

"So you see the only possible _point d'appui_ was to begin with a
description of the inside of the boiler."

We nodded.

"A masterly thing," we said.

"My wife," interrupted the Great Novelist, who was sitting with the head
of a huge Danish hound in his lap, sharing his buttered toast with the
dog while he adjusted a set of trout flies, "is a great worker."

"Do you always work on that method?" we asked.

"Always," she answered. "For _Frederica of the Factory_ I spent six
months in a knit