“And then--why, what shall we do with all our money? I can’t think how we shall spend it.” “We shan’t get too rich in a hurry. This is the one direction in which you women have a fine sweep of imagination--but it is not so easy to make money as it is to spend it in imagination. People don’t care for simply _good stuff_ in periodical literature, nowadays. It must intoxicate them with the odor of blood, and I can’t do that--I can’t do Jack the Giant Killer stories. I abominate anachronisms of mood in literature. Fancy an old friar writing on modern sex problems! But refined literary taste craves _gore_, and plenty of it, and gore is sent by the shipload from over the sea. The British make the best literary butchers--it comes natural to them to hack and chop and stab. The renaissance of blood and thunder in fiction is the wonder of our age. We cure any tendency to thinking by letting blood, just as the old surgeons did all forms of virulent disease a generation or so ago.” “Oh, but surely, there is just a big enough public for good wit and good humor to make our venture a success--and then with a million readers we can hear Melba in the orchestra chairs.” “A million--what an imagination you’ve got! That would be a ten-strike!” “Well, why shouldn’t _you_ have a ten-strike? I’m sure you deserve it.” “All moralists do--but ten-strikes do not go to the deserving. Providence does not reward virtue in this fashion.” “Then Providence should. I’m sure you ought to succeed--and I’ve made up my mind about it. We’ll do lots of things with our million. I think we’ll begin by ceasing to buy our tea where they give the crockery with it. But tonight I want a little pitcher. “Then--just think!--I wouldn’t have to go to the butcher’s and watch the scale to see whether I get fair weight or not. I wouldn’t care--I’d order by telephone, and I’d get the very best parts of the meat instead of the _good_ parts, and you could eat the _fillet_ of beef all the time to build you up and make blood and brain. You must hurry up and get that million.” [Illustration] “I’m all right as it is, but I _do_ like a tender steak. And I think we’d quit something of our enthusiasm for Boston baked beans, though I’ve got quite to enjoy them. Still, it’s a sort of acquired patriotism--and, like most forms of patriotism, popular because it’s inexpensive. Then we wouldn’t have frankfurters so often. And we could begin to cultivate a taste for paté de fois gras instead--although I think it looks hateful.” “Yes, and we’d have enough table napkins for unexpected callers.” “And ones for everyday, too.” “You shouldn’t speak so loud about such things in the crowd. I’m sure that woman heard you--she stared so hard. Oh, and we’d have silver rings for them!”