"Yes," said John, quickly. He had not the least idea really, but he had long ago ceased to have any scruples about preventing James first of all from trying to remember a quotation, secondly from trying to find it, thirdly from asking Beatrice where she had hidden the book in which it was to be found, and finally from not only reading it when the book was found, but also from reading page after page of irrelevant matter in the context. "Though Ambles is really very jolly," he added. "I'm expecting you and Beatrice to spend Christmas with me, you know." James grunted. "Well, we'll see about that. I don't belong to the Dickens Fellowship and I shall be pretty busy. You popular authors soon forget what it means to be busy. So you've had another success? Who was it this time--Lucretia Borgia, eh?" he laughed, bitterly. "Good lord, it's incredible, isn't it? But the English drama's in a sick state--a very sick state." "All contemporary art is in a sick state according to the critics," John observed. "Critics are like doctors; they are not prejudiced in favor of general good-health." "Well, isn't it in a sick state?" James demanded, truculently. "I don't know that I think it is. However, don't let's begin an argument before supper. Where's Beatrice?" "She bought a new hat yesterday and has gone to demonstrate its becomingness to God and woman." "I suppose you mean she's gone to church? I went to church myself this morning." "What for? Copy?" "No, no, no. I took George's children." "You don't mean to say that you've got _them_ with you?" John nodded, and his brother exploded with an uproarious laugh. "Well, I was fool enough to marry before I was thirty," he bellowed. "But at any rate I wasn't fool enough to have any children. So you're going to sup with us. I ought to warn you it's cold mutton to-night." "Really? Capital! There's nothing I like better than cold mutton." "Upon my soul, Johnnie, I'll say this for you. You may write stale romantic plays about the past, but you manage to keep plenty of romantic sauce for the present. Yes, you're a born optimist. Look at your skin--pink as a baby's. Look at mine--yellow as a horse's tooth. Have you heard my new name for your habit of mind? Rosification. Rather good, eh? And you can rosify anything from Lucretia Borgia to cold mutton. Now don't look angry with me, Johnnie; you must rosify my ill-humor. With so many roses you can't expect not to have a few thorns as well, and I'm one of them. No, seriously, I congratulate you on your success. And I always try to remember that you write with your tongue in your cheek." "On the contrary I believe I write as well as I can," said John, earnestly. "I admit that I gave up writing realistic novels, but that was because they didn't suit my temperament." "No, by gad, they didn't! And, anyway, no Englishman can write a realistic novel--or any other kind of a novel if it comes to that. My lord, the English novel!"