‘What a pity that you did not make all your alterations and corrections before sending the manuscript to press!’ he exclaimed one day, when Lucian called with a bundle of proofs which had been hacked about in such a fashion as to need complete resetting. ‘It would have saved a lot of trouble--and expense.’ Lucian stared at him with the eyes of a young owl, round and wondering. ‘How on earth can you see what a thing looks like until it’s in print?’ he said irritably. ‘What are printers for?’ ‘Just so--just so!’ responded the publisher. ‘But really, you know, this book is being twice set--every sheet has had to be pulled to pieces, and it adds to the expense.’ Lucian’s eyes grew rounder than ever. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he answered. ‘That is your province--don’t bother me about it.’ Robertson laughed. He was beginning to find out, after some experience, that Lucian was imperturbable on certain points. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘By the bye, how much more copy is there--or if copy is too vulgar a word for your mightiness, how many more lines or verses?’ ‘About four hundred and fifty lines,’ answered Lucian. ‘Say another twenty-four pages,’ said Robertson. ‘Well, it runs now to three hundred and fifty--that means that it’s going to be a book of close upon four hundred pages.’ ‘Well?’ questioned Lucian. ‘I was merely thinking that it is a long time since the public was asked to buy a volume containing four hundred pages of blank verse,’ remarked the publisher. ‘I hope this won’t frighten anybody.’ ‘You make some very extraordinary remarks,’ said Lucian, with unmistakable signs of annoyance. ‘What _do_ you mean?’ ‘Oh, nothing, nothing!’ answered Robertson, who was on sufficient terms of intimacy with Lucian to be able to chaff him a little. ‘I was merely thinking of trade considerations.’ ‘You appear to be always “merely thinking” of something extraordinary,’ said Lucian. ‘What can trade considerations have to do with the length of my poem?’ ‘What indeed?’ said the publisher, and began to talk of something else. But when Lucian had gone he looked rather doubtfully at the pile of interlineated proof, and glanced from it to the thin octavo with which the new poet had won all hearts nearly five years before. ‘I wish it had been just a handful of gold like that!’ he said to himself. ‘Four hundred pages of blank verse all at one go!--it’s asking a good deal, unless it catches on with the old maids and the dowagers, like the _Course of Time_ and the _Epic of Hades_. Well, we shall see; but I’d rather have some of your earlier lyrics than this weighty performance, Lucian, my boy--I would indeed!’