“I’m afraid,” said Ray, dejectedly, “that the moral question didn’t enter with me. If people thought it wrong to make bets of that kind, it seems to me that all business would come to a standstill.” “‘Sh!” said Kane, putting his finger to his lip, and glancing round with burlesque alarm. “This is open incivism. It is accusing the whole framework of commercial civilization. Go on; it’s delightful to hear you; but don’t let any one _over_hear you.” “I don’t know what you mean,” said Ray, with sullen resentment, “about incivism. I’m saying what everybody knows.” “Ah! But what everybody _knows_ is just what nobody _says_. If people said what they knew, society would tumble down like a house of cards.” Ray was silent, far withdrawn from these generalities into his personal question. Kane asked compassionately, “Then you think you can’t venture--risk--chance it? Excuse me! I was trying to find a euphemism for the action, but there seems none!” “No; I daren’t do it! The risk is too great.” “That seems to be the consensus of the book trade concerning it. Perhaps you are right. _Would_ you mind,” asked Kane with all his sweet politeness, “letting me take your manuscript home, and go over it carefully?” “_Let_ you!” Ray began in a rapture of gratitude, but Kane stopped him. “No, no! Don’t expect anything! _Don’t_ form any hopes. Simply suppose me to be reading it as a lover of high-class fiction, with no ulterior view whatever. I am really the feeblest of conies, and I have not even the poor advantage of having my habitation in the rocks. Good-by! Good-day! Don’t try to stop me with civilities! Heaven knows how far my noble purpose will hold if it is weakened by any manner of delay.” Ray lived a day longer in the flimsiest air-castles that ever the vagrant winds blew through. In the evening Kane came back with his story. “Well, my dear young friend, you have certainly produced the despair of criticism in this extraordinary fiction of yours. I don’t wonder all the readers have been of so many minds about it. I only wonder that any one man could be of any one mind about it long enough to get himself down on paper. In some respects it is the very worst thing I ever saw, and yet--and yet--it interested me, it held me to the end. I will make a confession; I will tell you the truth. I took the thing home, hoping to find justification in it for approaching a poor friend of mine who is in the publishing line, and making him believe that his interest lay in publishing it. But I could not bring myself to so simple an act of bad faith. I found I should have to say to my friend, ‘Here is a novel which might make your everlasting fortune, but most of the chances are against it. There are twenty chances that it will fail to one that it will succeed; just the average of failure and success in business life. You had better take it.’ Of course he would not take it, because he could not afford to add a special risk to the general business risk. You see?”