“So Ray appears to have declared. Mr. Bousefield says that’s not in the least a public want. No one can make out what you’re talking about and no one would care if he could. I’m only quoting _him_, mind.” “Quote, quote--if Limbert holds out. I think I must leave you now, please: I must rush back to express to him what I feel.” “I’ll drive you to his door. That isn’t all,” said Mrs. Highmore. And on the way, when the carriage had turned, she communicated the rest. “Mr. Bousefield really arrived with an ultimatum: it had the form of something or other by Minnie Meadows.” “Minnie Meadows?” I was stupefied. “The new lady-humourist every one is talking about. It’s the first of a series of screaming sketches for which poor Ray was to find a place.” “Is _that_ Mr. Bousefield’s idea of literature?” “No, but he says it’s the public’s, and you’ve got to take _some_ account of the public. _Aux grands maux les grands remèdes_. They had a tremendous lot of ground to make up, and no one would make it up like Minnie. She would be the best concession they could make to human weakness; she would strike at least this note of showing that it was not going to be quite all--well, all _you_. Now Ray draws the line at Minnie; he won’t stoop to Minnie; he declines to touch, to look at Minnie. When Mr. Bousefield--rather imperiously, I believe--made Minnie a _sine quâ non_ of his retention of his post he said something rather violent, told him to go to some unmentionable place and take Minnie with him. That of course put the fat on the fire. They had really a considerable scene.” “So had he with the _Beacon_ man,” I musingly replied. “Poor dear, he seems born for considerable scenes! It’s on Minnie, then, that they’ve really split?” Mrs. Highmore exhaled her despair in a sound which I took for an assent, and when we had rolled a little further I rather in-consequently and to her visible surprise broke out of my reverie. “It will never do in the world--he _must_ stoop to Minnie!” “It’s too late--and what I’ve told you still isn’t all. Mr. Bousefield raises another objection.” “What other, pray?” “Can’t you guess?” I wondered. “No more of Ray’s fiction?” “Not a line. That’s something else no magazine can stand. Now that his novel has run its course Mr. Bousefield is distinctly disappointed.” I fairly bounded in my place. “Then it may do?” Mrs. Highmore looked bewildered. “Why so, if he finds it too dull?” “Dull? Ralph Limbert? He’s as fine as a needle!” “It comes to the same thing--he won’t penetrate leather. Mr. Bousefield had counted on something that _would_, on something that would have a wider acceptance. Ray says he wants iron pegs.” I collapsed again; my flicker of elation dropped to a throb of quieter comfort; and after a moment’s silence I asked my neighbour if she had herself read the work our friend had just put forth. “No,” she replied, “I gave him my word at the beginning, on his urgent request, that I wouldn’t.” “Not even as a book?”