'They're going to be better than yours, my dear,' said Jane. 'Wait and see.... But I dare say they won't be as good as this.' She appraised Charles with her eyes. 'But, oh, so much less trouble,' she added, swinging him up and down. 'I could have one as good as that,' said Johnny thoughtfully, 'with no trouble at all.' 'You'd have to work for it and keep it. And its mother. You wouldn't like that, you know.... Of course you ought to. It's your duty. Every young man who survives.... Daddy says so. You'd better do it, John. You're getting on, you know.' Young men hate getting on. They hate it, really, more than young women do. Youth is of such immense value, in almost any career, but particularly to the young writer. But Johnny only said, with apparent nonchalance, 'Twenty-seven is not very old.' He added, however, 'Anyhow, you're five minutes older, and I've published a book, if you have produced that thing.' Johnny was frankly greedy about his book. He hung on reviews; he asked for it in bookshops, and expressed astonishment and contempt when they had not got it. And it was, after all, nothing to make a song about, Jane thought. It wasn't positively discreditable to its writer, like most novels, but it was a very normal book, by a very normal cleverish young man. Johnny wasn't sure that his publishers advertised it as much as was desirable. Gideon came up to Jane and Charles. He had just arrived. He had three evening papers in his hand. His fellow passengers had left them in the train, and he had collected them. Jews often get their news that way. Johnny saw his friend Miss Nancy Sharpe disengaged and looking lovely, and went to speak to her. He was really in love with her a little, though he didn't go as far as wanting to work for her and keep her. He was quite right; that is to go too far, when so much happiness is attainable short of it. Johnny wisely shunned desperate measures. So, to do her justice, did Miss Sharpe. 'Johnny's very elated,' said Jane to Gideon, looking after him. 'What do _you_ think of his book, Arthur?' Gideon said, 'I don't think of it. I've had no reason to, particularly. I've not had to review it.... I'm afraid I'm hopeless about novels just now, that's the fact. I'm sick of the form--slices of life served up cold in three hundred pages. Oh, it's very nice; it makes nice reading for people. But what's the use? Except, of course, to kill time for those who prefer it dead. But as things in themselves, as art, they've been ruined by excess. My critical sense is blunted just now. I can hardly feel the difference, though I see it, between a good novel and a bad one. I couldn't write one, good or bad, to save my life, I know that. And I've got to the stage when I wish other people wouldn't. I wish every one would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think--like in the Armistice Day pause, when all the noise stopped.' Jane shook her head.