“Oh, I grant you the success of the method there, but, dear Selina” (I had lit my pipe and felt equal to out-arguing a non-smoker in the long run), “let us distinguish.” (Patty strolled away with her Gyp while we distinguished.) “The method of Henry James was good for Henry James. What was the ruling motive of his people? Curiosity about one another’s minds. Now, if he had just told us their minds, straightway, by ‘getting behind’ each of them in turn, in the ‘omniscient’ style, there would have been no play of curiosity, no chance for it even to begin, the cat would have been out of the bag. By putting his point of view inside one of his people and steadily keeping it fixed there, he turns all the other people into mere appearances—just as other people are for each one of us in real life. We have to guess and to infer what is in their minds, we make mistakes and correct them; sometimes they purposely mislead us. This is rather a nuisance, perhaps, in the real world of action, where our curiosity must have a ‘business end’ to it; but it is (for those who like it, as you and I do, Selina) immense fun in the world of fiction.” “Now,” interjected Selina, “you are talking! That is precisely my case.” “Stop a minute, Selina. I said the method was good for the writer whose temperament it suited. But so are other methods for other temperaments. You may tell your story all in letters, if you are a Richardson, or with perpetual digressions and statements that you are telling a story, if you are a Fielding or a Thackeray, or autobiographically, if your autobiography is a ‘Copperfield’ or a ‘Kidnapped.’ Every author, I suggest, is a law to himself. And I see no reason why we should bar ‘omniscience,’ as you apparently want to. Why forbid the novelist the historian’s privilege? Why rule out the novel which is a history of imaginary facts?” “I can’t quite see Gyp as a historian,” said Selina. “No more can I, thank goodness,” said Patty. And so we were rowed back to the jetty, and the blue eyes didn’t blink over half-a-crown under the very notice board. AGAIN AT THE MARTELLO TOWER Now that regattas are over and oysters have come in again, our little port has returned to its normal or W. W. Jacobs demeanour. The bathers on the sand-spit have struck their tents. The Salvation Army band is practising its winter repertory. When our blue-eyed boatman rowed us over to the Martello tower again the other day, he almost looked as though he expected little more than his legal fare. Selina, who has the gift of management, suggested that Patty should try it on with him, on the ground, first, that women always do these things better than men, and, second, that Patty was blue-eyes’ favourite. I acquiesced, and Patty borrowed half-a-crown of me, so as to be prepared when the time came.