Orrington remained very calm. He seemed in no wise disturbed by the fury of Reynolds’s tirade, nor by his insufferable rudeness, but puffed at a cigarette two or three times before he replied. “It’s a poor thing, critical sense,” he murmured. “I’ve never been proud of what mine has done for me. But you must admit that I paid you a pretty compliment, Reynolds, in believing that your story was founded on real experience. I don’t see why you need mind my saying that it wasn’t much of a yarn. Nobody need be sensitive about something he did twenty years back.” “I don’t care a hang what you thought about the story then, or what you think of it now,” Reynolds snapped. “You might, however, grant the existence of imagination. You needn’t attribute everything anybody writes to actual experience. I never went hungry.” So that was where the shoe pinched! Reynolds insisted on being proud of his prosperity at all stages. I laughed. “You’ve missed something, then,” I put in. “The sensation, if not agreeable, is unique. Every man should feel it once, in a way. A couple of times I’ve run short of provisions, and I assure you the experience is like nothing else.” “That’s different,” said Reynolds a little more quietly. “I’m not saying that I owe nothing to Orrington. I acknowledge that I do, and I admit that I ought to have acknowledged it twenty years ago. I was anxious at the time to get a start in the world of letters, and I was looking for an opening. Orrington’s suggestion gave me my first little opportunity; but it certainly didn’t save my life.” “Then it was all imagination, after all,” Orrington said gently. “What a mistake I made!” “Of course it was all imagined!” Reynolds protested, and he added naïvely: “I was living at home at the time, and I had a sufficient allowance from my father.” A twinkle crept into Orrington’s usually expressionless eyes. “I must apologize to you, Reynolds, or perhaps to your father, for so mistaking the circumstances of your youth. You have, at all events, lived down the opprobrium of inherited wealth. You’ve supported yourself quite nicely ever since I’ve known you.” “As I remarked earlier,” Reynolds went on pompously, but in better humor, “I have never thought it wise for young men to embark on the literary life without sufficient means to live in comfort until they can establish their reputations. In my own case I should never have undertaken to do so.” His declaration of principle seemed to restore him to complete self-satisfaction, and it must have seemed to him the proper cue for exit. As he was already standing, he was in a position to shake hands with Orrington and me rather condescendingly; and he took himself off with the swagger of conscious invincibility. I think he bore us no malice. Orrington looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I told you I needed you to save my life,” he said. “I hadn’t any notion, though, that this kind of thing would happen. I’m sorry to have let you in for such a scene.”