“My dear, I assure you I did nothing of the sort. This is very vexing, for it has spoiled my evening’s work.” The next evening George said that he did not feel in the mood for writing, and I suppose I looked disappointed, for he flared up. “I can’t be eternally writing,” he growled. “But you haven’t done anything at all yet.” “That is a rather ungenerous way of expressing it.” “But you spoke as if the work would be a pleasure.” “Have I said that it is not a pleasure? If you knew anything of literary history, you would be aware that there are occasions when the most industrious writers cannot pen a line.” “They must make a beginning some time, though!” “Well, I shall make a beginning to-morrow.” Next evening he seemed in no hurry to go into the study. “I’ll hang the bedroom pictures,” he said. “No, no, you must get begone to your book.” “You are in a desperate hurry to see me at that book.” “You spoke as if you were so anxious to begin it.” “So I am. Did I say I wasn’t?” He marched off to the study, banging the drawing-room door. An hour or so afterward I took him his tea. He had left his study door open so that I could see him on the couch before I entered the room. When he heard the rattle of the tea-things he jumped up and strode to the study table, where, when I entered, he pretended to be busy writing. “How are you getting on, dear?” I asked, with a sinking at the heart. “Excellently, my love, excellently.” I looked at him so reproachfully that he blushed. “I think,” said he, when he had drunk the tea, “that I have done enough for one night. I mustn’t overdo it.” “Won’t you let me hear what you have written?” He blushed again. “Wait till Saturday,” he said. “Then let me put your papers away,” I said, for I was anxious to see whether he had written anything at all. “I couldn’t think of it,” he replied, covering the paper with his elbows. Next morning I counted the clean sheets of paper. They were just as I had put them on the table. So it went on for a fortnight or more, with this difference. He either suspected that I counted the sheets, or thought that I might take it into my head to do so. To allay my suspicions, therefore, he put away what he called his manuscript in a drawer, which he took care to lock. I discovered that one of my own keys opened this drawer, and one day I examined the manuscripts. They consisted of twenty-four pages of paper, without a word written on them. Every evening he added two more clean pages to the contents of the drawer. This discovery made me so scornful that I taxed him with the deceit. At first he tried to brazen it out, but I was merciless, and then he said: “The fact is that I can’t write by gas-light. I fear I shall have to defer beginning the work until spring.”