He reached into an inner pocket for a fountain pen and examined it carefully. Then he cleared his pad and began to write slowly and precisely. He was not now inventing. He was a critic, a just judge, a man having authority; in short, an editor. He took impartially, with cold and fearless discrimination, from Augusta's paper and from his own. And it was an astonishing fact that he was hardly obliged to add even connectives. A paragraph of hers fitted in after one of his so neatly that there was not a seam of divergence between. And there were even sentences which he could begin in Augusta's words, and end with his own. He was not now excited. He was working with the cool and certain precision of the trained man who has his tools right and is finding perfect materials ready to his hand. He did not care where the materials came from. He had no compunction that Augusta's thoughts were sacredly her own and that he had no right to use them so. Neither, on the other hand, did he feel the smallest resentment when he found himself bound to drop one of his own best regarded lines and replace it with one from Augusta's. He cared for nothing but what he saw was the excellence of the finished product. When Augusta had finished her second sheet he rescued it from the floor where it, too, had fallen disregarded, and went on with his editing. By the time when Augusta's third and fourth sheets came from her hurrying fingers he found that she was reaching far beyond the point to which he had come in nearly a whole day's work. She was going, straight and true, with far less words than he had found necessary, swiftly towards the conclusion for which he had been merely groping. Now he was really put to it to keep his pace with Augusta's flying thought, to anticipate the hurrying turn of her fancy, to drive in with the thrust of his own quick, excited words. It was a crazy, disorderly method of work, but Jimmie knew that they were both working on the very edge of inspiration and he knew that it was all good. For two solid hours they worked madly, Augusta all unconscious of the fact that she was taking part in a desperate race. Finally Jimmie saw that she was trembling with fatigue and strain. He went over quickly and swooped her up bodily into his arms and carried her, protesting, over to his chair. When he had brought cold water and bathed her forehead and eyes, for he knew how they must be smarting and dancing with fever and strain, he said: "Rest a little, dear; and then I am going to show you something." "Have you been looking at what I did?" she asked quickly, seeing her pages where he had laid them. "I have, Augusta, and they're great. And on top of that I've taken the most impudent liberty. But you shall be judge." "Why? What have you been doing?" "Well, read this first, will you please, dear," he evaded, giving her the stuff that he himself had scribbled at all day.