his play this morning. Seeing you working so hard makes him feel lazy." Edith laughed faintly and fearfully, as if she would deprecate her own profanity in referring to so gross a quality as laziness in connection with Laurence, and perhaps for the first time in her life she proclaimed that her opinion was only an echo of Laurence's own by adding, "he says that it makes him feel lazy. So he's going to begin at once."

John, whose mind kept reverting iambically and trochaically to the curtain of his first act, merely replied, without any trace of awe, that he was glad Laurence felt in the vein.

"But he hasn't decided yet," Edith continued, "which room he's going to work in."

For the first time a puff of apprehension twitched the little straw that might be going to break the camel's back.

"I'm afraid I can't offer him the library," John said quickly. "And you shall see the King of France to-day," he went on composing in his head. "No—And you shall see King Charles—no—and you shall see the King of France at once—no—and you shall see the King of France forthwith. Sensation among the villagers standing round. Forthwith is weak at the end of a line. I swear that you shall see the King of France. Sensation. Yes, that's it."

The top of John's egg was by this time so completely cracked by his metronomic spoon that a good deal of the shell was driven down into the egg: it did not matter, however, because appetite and inspiration were both disposed of by the arrival of Laurence.

"I wish you could have managed to help me with some of these things," he was muttering reproachfully to his wife.

The things consisted of six or seven books, a quantity of foolscap, an inkpot dangerously brimming, a paper-knife made of olive wood from Gethsemane, several pens and pencils, and a roll of blotting paper as white as the snow upon the summit of Mont Blanc, and so fat that John thought at first it was a tablecloth and wondered what his brother-in-law meant to do with it. He was even chilled by a brief and horrible suspicion that he was going to hold a communion service. Edith rose hastily from the table to help her husband unload himself.

"I'm so sorry, dear, why didn't you ring?"

"My dear, how could I ring without letting my materials drop?" Laurence asked, patiently.

"Or call?"

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