Chapter 5

"DELICIOUS my having come down to tell him of it!" Mr. Morrow
ejaculated. "My cab was at the door twenty minutes after THE
EMPIRE had been laid on my breakfast-table. Now what have you got
for me?" he continued, dropping again into his chair, from which,
however, he the next moment eagerly rose. "I was shown into the
drawing-room, but there must be more to see - his study, his
literary sanctum, the little things he has about, or other domestic
objects and features. He wouldn't be lying down on his study-
table? There's a great interest always felt in the scene of an
author's labours. Sometimes we're favoured with very delightful
peeps. Dora Forbes showed me all his table-drawers, and almost
jammed my hand into one into which I made a dash! I don't ask that
of you, but if we could talk things over right there where he sits
I feel as if I should get the keynote."

I had no wish whatever to be rude to Mr. Morrow, I was much too
initiated not to tend to more diplomacy; but I had a quick
inspiration, and I entertained an insurmountable, an almost
superstitious objection to his crossing the threshold of my
friend's little lonely shabby consecrated workshop. "No, no - we
shan't get at his life that way," I said. "The way to get at his
life is to - But wait a moment!" I broke off and went quickly into
the house, whence I in three minutes reappeared before Mr. Morrow
with the two volumes of Paraday's new book. "His life's here," I
went on, "and I'm so full of this admirable thing that I can't talk
of anything else. The artist's life's his work, and this is the
place to observe him. What he has to tell us he tells us with THIS
perfection. My dear sir, the best interviewer is the best reader."

Mr. Morrow good-humouredly protested. "Do you mean to say that no
other source of information should be open to us?"

"None other till this particular one - by far the most copious -
has been quite exhausted. Have you exhausted it, my dear sir? Had
you exhausted it when you came down here? It seems to me in our
time almost wholly neglected, and something should surely be done
to restore its ruined credit. It's the course to which the artist
himself at every step, and with such pathetic confidence, refers
us. This last book of Mr. Paraday's is full of revelations."

"Revelations?" panted Mr. Morrow, whom I had forced again into his
chair.

"The only kind that count. It tells you with a perfection that
seems to me quite final all the author thinks, for instance, about
the advent of the 'larger latitude.'"

"Where does it do that?" asked Mr. Morrow, who had picked up the
second volume and was insincerely thumbing it.

"Everywhere - in the whole treatment of his case. Extract the