"I'd move heaven and earth to avoid the county-court," he said. "It would be sure to get about. Everything is contrary and cross-grained just now: Carrick's not to the fore; Vincent Yorke says he has neither cross nor coin to bless himself with, let alone me. I never got but one loan from the fellow in my life, and be hanged to him!" "Your expenses are so heavy, Gerald." "Who the devil is to make them lighter?" fiercely demanded Gerald. "One can't live as a hermit. I beg your pardon, old fellow; I'm cross, I know, but I have so much to worry me. Things come upon one all at once. Because I had not enough ways for my ready money just now, Winny must come up and want a heap." "What is pressing you particularly?" "That," said Gerald, flicking his hand in the direction of the boot bill. "There's nothing else very much at the present moment." But the "present moment" with Gerald meant the present actual hour that was passing. "About my manuscript," he resumed, his tone brightening a little as he sat down to the table to face Hamish. Still, for an instant or two, Hamish hesitated. He drew the sheets towards him and turned them over, as if in deliberation what to say. "You charged me to tell you the truth, Gerald." "Of _course_ I did," loudly answered Gerald. "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." "Well, Gerald, I should not but for your earnest wish, and that it is I suppose the more real kindness to do so, as it may prevent you from wasting time upon another. I am afraid it won't do, old friend." "What won't do?" asked Gerald, with wide-open eyes that showed the wonder in them. Delicately, gently, considerately, as he could have imparted ill news to the dearest friend he had on earth, Hamish Channing told him the story would not do, would not, at least, be a success, and pointed out _why_ he thought so. The book was full of mistakes and faults; these for the most part he passed lightly over: speaking rather of the defects of the work as a whole. "Go on; let's have it all," said Gerald, when there was a pause: and Hamish saw nothing of the suppressed passion, or of the irony that lay at the bottom of the following words. "You think I cannot succeed in fiction?" "Not in a long work----" "Why the work's a short one," interrupted Gerald. "Very short indeed. Some writers of fiction (and as a rule they are the best, Gerald) put as much in a volume and a half as you have written for the three volumes. I don't think you could write a successful work of fiction in even one volume, Gerald--as I count success. It must have a plot; it must have consecutiveness in the working out; it must have--" "It must have, in short, just the qualities that my work lacks," interposed Gerald with a laugh: and Hamish felt relieved that he was receiving things so easily.