“A novel! Oh, I have no time to read novels!” the old man burst out. “A practical man”-- “Nor volumes of essays,” said Kane, picking up a book from the table at his elbow. “Really, as a measure of self-defence, I must have the leaves of my presentation copies cut, at any rate. I must sacrifice my taste to my vanity. Then I sha’n’t know when the grateful recipients haven’t opened them.” “I’ve no time to read books of any kind”--the old man began again. “You ought to set up reviewer,” Kane interposed again. “Oh, I’ve looked into your essays, Kane, here and there. The literature is of a piece with the affectation of the uncut edges: something utterly outdated and superseded. It’s all as impertinent as the demand you make that the reader should do the work of a bookbinder, and cut your leaves.” “Do you know that I’m really hurt--not for myself, but for you!--by what you say of my uncut edges? You descend to the level of a Brandreth,” said Kane. “A Brandreth? What is a Brandreth?” “It is a publisher: Chapley’s son-in-law and partner.” “Oh, yes, yes,” said Hughes. “I spent many hours,” said Kane, plaintively, “pleading with him for an edition with uncut edges. He contended that the public would not buy it if the edges were not cut; and I told him that I wished to have that fact to fall back upon, in case they didn’t buy it for some other reason. And I was right. The edition hasn’t sold, and the uncut edges have saved me great suffering until now. Why not have confined your own remarks, my dear friend, to the uncut edges? I might have agreed with you.” “Because,” said the old man, “I cannot have patience with a man of your age who takes the mere dilettante view of life--who regards the world as something to be curiously inspected and neatly commented, instead of toiled for, sweated for, suffered for!” “It appears to me that there is toiling and sweating and suffering enough for the world already,” said Kane, with a perverse levity. “Look at the poor millionnaires, struggling to keep their employés in work! If you’ve come back to the world for no better purpose than to add to its perseverance and perspiration, I could wish for your own sake that you had remained in some of your communities--or all of them, for that matter.” The other turned half round in his chair, and looked hard into Kane’s smiling face. “You are a most unserious spirit, Kane, and you always were! When will you begin to be different? Do you expect to continue a mere frivolous maker of phrases to the last? Your whole book there is just a bundle of phrases--labels for things. Do you ever intend to _be_ anything?” “I intend to be an angel, some time--or some eternity,” said Kane. “But, in the meanwhile, have you ever considered that perhaps you are demanding, in your hopes of what you call the redemption of the race from selfishness, as sheer and mere an impossibility as a change of the physical basis of the soul?” “What do you mean?”