laying down his pipe, 'suppose we eat a
morsel of something. I'm rather hungry.'

In the early days of his marriage Reardon was wont to offer the friends
who looked in on Sunday evening a substantial supper; by degrees the
meal had grown simpler, until now, in the depth of his poverty, he made
no pretence of hospitable entertainment. It was only because he knew
that Biffen as often as not had nothing whatever to eat that he did not
hesitate to offer him a slice of bread and butter and a cup of tea. They
went into the back room, and over the Spartan fare continued to discuss
aspects of fiction.

'I shall never,' said Biffen, 'write anything like a dramatic scene.
Such things do happen in life, but so very rarely that they are nothing
to my purpose. Even when they happen, by-the-bye, it is in a shape that
would be useless to the ordinary novelist; he would have to cut away
this circumstance, and add that. Why? I should like to know. Such
conventionalism results from stage necessities. Fiction hasn't yet
outgrown the influence of the stage on which it originated. Whatever a
man writes FOR EFFECT is wrong and bad.'

'Only in your view. There may surely exist such a thing as the ART of
fiction.'

'It is worked out. We must have a rest from it. You, now--the best
things you have done are altogether in conflict with novelistic
conventionalities. It was because that blackguard review of "On Neutral
Ground" clumsily hinted this that I first thought of you with interest.
No, no; let us copy life. When the man and woman are to meet for a
great scene of passion, let it all be frustrated by one or other of
them having a bad cold in the head, and so on. Let the pretty girl get
a disfiguring pimple on her nose just before the ball at which she is
going to shine. Show the numberless repulsive features of common decent
life. Seriously, coldly; not a hint of facetiousness, or the thing
becomes different.'

About eight o'clock Reardon heard his wife's knock at the door. On
opening he saw not only Amy and the servant, the latter holding Willie
in her arms, but with them Jasper Milvain.

'I have been at Mrs Yule's,' Jasper explained as he came in. 'Have you
anyone here?'

'Biffen.'

'Ah, then we'll discuss realism.'

'That's over for the evening. Greek metres also.'

'Thank Heaven!'

The three men seated themselves with joking and laughter, and the smoke
of their pipes gathered thickly in the little room. It was half an
hou