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But I'm still walking rather a narrow plank; and if I do your work well enough if I take your idea " Betton stared into the fire without answering. He knew next to nothing of Vyse's history, of the mischance or mis-management that had brought him, with his brains and his training, to so unlikely a pass.
As he leaned back he caught sight of his image in the mirror between the windows, and reflected uneasily that Vyse would not find him unchanged. "Serious?" Vyse rejoined. "Why not? Aren't you?" "Oh, perfectly." Betton laughed apologetically. "Only well, the fact is, you may not understand what rubbish a secretary of mine would have to deal with.
Letters about my books, you know I've another one appearing next week. And I want to be beforehand now dam the flood before it swamps me. Have you any idea of the deluge of stuff that people write to a successful novelist?" As Betton spoke, he saw a tinge of red on Vyse's thin cheek, and his own reflected it in a richer glow of shame. "I mean I mean " he stammered helplessly.
Betton, full of compunction, would gladly have advanced the sum himself; but he was hard up too, and could only swear inwardly: "I'll write to Apthorn." Then he glanced again at the manuscript, and reflected: "No there are things in it that need explaining. I'd better see him." Once he went so far as to telephone Apthorn, but the publisher was out. Then he finally and completely forgot.
But it doesn't take all my time, or pay enough to keep me alive." "In that case, my dear fellow if you could come every morning; but it's mostly awful bosh, you know," Betton again broke off, with growing awkwardness. Vyse glanced at him humorously. "What you want me to write?" "Well, that depends " Betton sketched the obligatory smile. "But I was thinking of the letters you'll have to answer.
"Yes that is, if I'm to sign your name." "Oh, of course: I expect you to sign for me. As for the tone, say just what you'd well, say all you can without encouraging them to answer." Vyse rose from his seat. "I could submit a few specimens," he suggested. "Oh, as to that you always wrote better than I do," said Betton handsomely. "I've never had this kind of thing to write.
Betton laughed again, but Vyse continued without heeding him: "Look here, Betton could Strett have written them?" "Strett?" Betton roared. " Strett?" He threw himself into his arm-chair to shake out his mirth at greater ease. "I'll tell you why. Strett always posts all my answers. He comes in for them every day before I leave.
In an epistle to his friend Betton, high sheriff of the county, who had sent to him for a peck of seed corn, he says: "Soon plantin' time will come again, Syne may the heavens gie us rain, An' shining heat to bless ilk plain An' fertile hill, An' gar the loads o' yellow grain, Our garrets fill.
All this the professor's letters delicately and indirectly conveyed to Betton, with the result that the author of "Abundance" began to recognize in it the ripest flower of his genius. But if the professor understood his book, the girl in Florida understood him; and Betton was fully alive to the superior qualities of discernment which this process implied.
Betton stared at him with eyes wrinkled by amusement. "Perhaps she hadn't disappeared then." Vyse disregarded the conjecture. "Look here I believe all these letters are a hoax," he broke out. Betton stared at him with a face that turned slowly red and angry. "What are you talking about? All what letters?" "These I've spread out here: I've been comparing them.
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