of the poor. They always expound the crime of divorce, or
attack the error of matrimony. Now which of----"

"Then I ain't dealing with nothing," stated Joe. "What I'm figurin' on
doing is a regular love story. I thought maybe I'd have a nice young
chap who--who's building a railroad or something, fall in love with a
real nice girl who's the daughter of a fat man who's a crook. I mean
the fat man's the crook, not the daughter. And--and----"

"And then what?" asked Garry Devereau.

Fat Joe, unlike the man outside, did not notice that a new note,
dangerously hard and wickedly edged with ridicule, had replaced the
amusement in Garry's voice. He grew a little more enthusiastic.

"Well, that's as far as I've got, right up to now," he admitted with an
explosive sigh. "But it looks like a good enough beginning, at that.
All I got to do now is run 'em through three or four hundred pages,
with him a-talkin' to her and her a-talkin' at him. All I got to do,
accordin' to all the books I've ever read, is see that it don't all
come too easy for him, and still turns out all right. I expect I'll
run 'em into a clinch with another guy standin' around eatin' his heart
out with jealousy. It'll serve him right; he's just that mean sort,
you know. Oh, I'll just marry 'em, along toward the end of the last
chapter, and that'll kind of close it up."

Stephen O'Mara had been watching Joe's face while the latter talked,
and therefore he was no more prepared than was Joe himself for the
burst of harsh laughter that came from Garry's lips. It seemed utterly
illogical that all actual humor should so swiftly fade from that
situation with the first really audible expression of mirth. Steve
himself believed it was only simulated, until his eyes swung to Garry's
face. But he knew then what thoughts had been with Garret Devereau,
all evening, before he had come up unheard to the door.

"Why, you poor simple scholar of nature!" The wan-faced one's lips
curled. "You're years behind your day! If you submitted such a screed
to a publisher now, he'd think you'd written a history of archaic
American types."

He stopped to sneer.

"Listen," he went on. "Listen, and I'll give you a plot, gratis,
which, if you handle it right, will make you, overnight! Take your
girl--a nice girl, to be sure, sweet and unsophisticated and--and
childishly innocent, Joe, and--and well, you'll have to describe her,
first, won't you? Let's dress her up,