e in league with the doctors,' was his bluff greeting,
as he held a hand to the young man and inspected him with a look of
slighting good-nature.

'Well, that certainly is one way of regarding the literary profession,'
admitted Jasper, who had heard enough of John's way of thinking to
understand the remark.

'A young fellow with all the world before him, too. Hang it, Mr Milvain,
is there no less pernicious work you can turn your hand to?'

'I'm afraid not, Mr Yule. After all, you know, you must be held in a
measure responsible for my depravity.'

'How's that?'

'I understand that you have devoted most of your life to the making
of paper. If that article were not so cheap and so abundant, people
wouldn't have so much temptation to scribble.'

Alfred Yule uttered a short laugh.

'I think you are cornered, John.'

'I wish,' answered John, 'that you were both condemned to write on such
paper as I chiefly made; it was a special kind of whitey-brown, used by
shopkeepers.'

He chuckled inwardly, and at the same time reached out for a box of
cigarettes on a table near him. His brother and Jasper each took one as
he offered them, and began to smoke.

'You would like to see literary production come entirely to an end?'
said Milvain.

'I should like to see the business of literature abolished.'

'There's a distinction, of course. But, on the whole, I should say that
even the business serves a good purpose.'

'What purpose?'

'It helps to spread civilisation.'

'Civilisation!' exclaimed John, scornfully. 'What do you mean by
civilisation? Do you call it civilising men to make them weak, flabby
creatures, with ruined eyes and dyspeptic stomachs? Who is it that
reads most of the stuff that's poured out daily by the ton from the
printing-press? Just the men and women who ought to spend their leisure
hours in open-air exercise; the people who earn their bread by sedentary
pursuits, and who need to live as soon as they are free from the desk
or the counter, not to moon over small print. Your Board schools, your
popular press, your spread of education! Machinery for ruining the
country, that's what I call it.'

'You have done a good deal, I think, to counteract those influences in
Wattleborough.'

'I hope so; and if only I had kept the use of my limbs I'd have done a
good deal more. I have an idea of offering substantial prizes to men
and women engaged in sedentary work who take an oath to abstain from all
readin