not of Homer, Dante,
and Shakespeare. If I could only get that into poor Reardon's head. He
thinks me a gross beast, often enough. What the devil--I mean what on
earth is there in typography to make everything it deals with sacred?
I don't advocate the propagation of vicious literature; I speak only of
good, coarse, marketable stuff for the world's vulgar. You just give it
a thought, Maud; talk it over with Dora.'

He resumed presently:

'I maintain that we people of brains are justified in supplying the mob
with the food it likes. We are not geniuses, and if we sit down in a
spirit of long-eared gravity we shall produce only commonplace stuff.
Let us use our wits to earn money, and make the best we can of our
lives. If only I had the skill, I would produce novels out-trashing the
trashiest that ever sold fifty thousand copies. But it needs skill, mind
you: and to deny it is a gross error of the literary pedants. To
please the vulgar you must, one way or another, incarnate the genius
of vulgarity. For my own part, I shan't be able to address the bulkiest
multitude; my talent doesn't lend itself to that form. I shall write for
the upper middle-class of intellect, the people who like to feel
that what they are reading has some special cleverness, but who can't
distinguish between stones and paste. That's why I'm so slow in warming
to the work. Every month I feel surer of myself, however.

That last thing of mine in The West End distinctly hit the mark; it
wasn't too flashy, it wasn't too solid. I heard fellows speak of it in
the train.'

Mrs Milvain kept glancing at Maud, with eyes which desired her attention
to these utterances. None the less, half an hour after dinner, Jasper
found himself encountered by his sister in the garden, on her face a
look which warned him of what was coming.

'I want you to tell me something, Jasper. How much longer shall you look
to mother for support? I mean it literally; let me have an idea of how
much longer it will be.'

He looked away and reflected.

'To leave a margin,' was his reply, 'let us say twelve months.'

'Better say your favourite "ten years" at once.'

'No. I speak by the card. In twelve months' time, if not before, I shall
begin to pay my debts. My dear girl, I have the honour to be a tolerably
long-headed individual. I know what I'm about.'

'And let us suppose mother were to die within half a year?'

'I should make shift to do very well.'

'You? And please--w