"So I've heard," Paddock said with a yawn. "But it wasn't to be. I haven't seen you since we left college, have I? Well, Dick, for a couple of years I tried to make good doing fiction. I turned them out by the yard--nice quiet little tea-table yarns with snappy dialogue. Once I got eighty dollars for a story. It was hard work--and I always did yearn for the purple, you know." "I know," said Minot gravely. "Well, I've struck it, Dick. I've struck the deep purple with a loud if sickening thud. Hist! The graft I mentioned yesterday." He glanced over his shoulder. "Remember Mrs. Bruce, the wittiest hostess in San Marco?" "Of course I do." "Well, I write her repartee for her." "Her--what?" "Her repartee--her dialogue--the bright talk she convulses dinner tables with. Instead of putting my smart stuff into stories at eighty per, I sell it to Mrs. Bruce at--I'd be ashamed to tell you, old man. I remarked that it was essentially soft. It is." "This is a new one on me," said Minot, dazed. A delighted smile spread over Mr. Paddock's handsome face. "Thanks. That's the beauty of it I'm a pioneer. There'll be others, but I was the first. Consider the situation. Here's Mrs. Bruce, loaded with diamonds and money, but tongue-tied in company, with a wit developed in Zanesville, Ohio. Bright, but struggling, young author comes to her--offers to make her conversation the sensation of the place for a few pesos." "You did that?" "Yes--I ask posterity to remember it was I who invented the graft. Mrs. Bruce fell on my fair young neck. Now, she gives me in advance a list of her engagements, and for the important ones I devise her line of talk. Then, as I'm usually present at the occasion, I swing things round for her and give her her cues. If I'm not there, she has to manage it herself. It's a great life--only a bit of a strain on me. I have to remember not to be clever in company. If I forget and spring a good one, she jumps on me proper afterward for not giving it to her." "Jack," said Minot slowly, "come way from here with me. Come north. This place will finish you sure." "Sorry, old man," laughed Paddock, "but I've had a nip of the lotus. This lazy old land suits me. I like to sit on a veranda while a dusky menial in a white coat hands me the tinkle-tinkle in a tall cool glass. Come away? Oh, no--I couldn't do that." "You'll marry down here," sighed Minot "Some girl with money. And the career we all hoped you'd make for yourself will go up in a golden cloud."