"My dear fellow, I am tired to death," he said, as he sat down at Opdyke's side, hitched up his trousers to prevent unseemly bagging and smoothed his coat into position. "Working?" Reed queried. "Like a dog. At least, that's the accepted phrase. The fact is, my terrier snored aloud, all the time I was about it. No. I assure you, I didn't read my stuff to him, as I went on." And Prather paused to laugh merrily at his own humour. Indeed, it was his own appreciation of his humour which led him to his frequent calls on Reed, for the little man was generous at heart, and loath to waste a really clever thing, when it might be doing untold good. "But still," he went on; "it shows the fallacy of the phrase. I work like a dog, and the real dog slumbers. Good joke, that! But, for a fact, I have been working." "Another novel?" "Yes. I tell the publishers it must be my swan song. Really, I am getting an old man. But they refuse to see it; I expect they will keep me in harness till I am--in my dotage," he added, with a reckless disregard of any possible comment which the phrase might call up in Opdyke's mind. Opdyke was proof against temptation. Instead,-- "How are you getting on?" he asked. "Very well; very well indeed, considering my breakfast," Prather responded unexpectedly. "I have done seventeen hundred words, to-day." "Really?" Opdyke's accent concealed the fact that he had no idea whether the record was great or small. Then he yielded to his curiosity. "But what has your breakfast to do about it, Prather?" The little novelist settled himself more deeply in his chair, and caressed his small mustache with two small hands which totally failed to conceal the smile behind them. "I was hoping you would ask the question, my dear fellow. It's a new idea of mine, and, really, I am not at all ashamed of it. Clever, I call it, do you know," he added, with rising enthusiasm. "In the old days, when I was a callow beginner, I used to eat at random. Deuce knows the messes it kicked up, too, with my plots! Now I know better. I fit my meals, my breakfast above all, to the kind of chapter I have ahead of me. When I need to be analytic, I eat beans and certain cereals, and drink black coffee very hot and very fast. Before a love scene, I eat curried things or else put on the stronger kinds of sauces. For the final parting of the lovers, I even have used both. And then for tragedy, for utter grief, I take to cold things, cold things rather underdone, if possible. My wife is a great help to me, in all this planning. She admires my work tremendously; most women do, and she has helped me work the theories out." Suddenly he brought himself up with a round turn that left him facing Opdyke. "Opdyke," he said abruptly; "you ought to have a wife." "But I don't write any novels," Reed protested, a trifle blank at the swift attack.