While he sat there with eyes riveted, he had her to dinner at a restaurant, and took her up the river, and called her "little woman"; and when she held up her mouth he said tantalizingly that she must wait until he had finished his cigar. This queer delight enjoyed, back he popped her into the story, where she was again the vehicle for such glorious sentiments that Elspeth, to whom he read the best of them, feared he was becoming too good to live.
In the meantime the great penny public were slowly growing restive, and at last the two little round men called on Pym to complain that he was falling off; and Pym turned them out of doors, and then sat down heroically to do what he had not done for two decades--to read his latest work.
"Elspeth, go upstairs to your room," whispered Tommy, and then he folded his arms proudly. He should have been in a tremble, but latterly he had often felt that he must burst if he did not soon read some of his bits to Pym, more especially the passages about the hereafter; also the opening of Chapter Seventeen.
At first Pym's only comment was, "It is the same old drivel as before; what more can they want?"
But presently he looked up, puzzled. "Is this chapter yours or mine?" he demanded.
"It is about half and half," said Tommy.
"Is mine the first half? Where does yours begin?" "That is not exactly what I mean," explained Tommy, in a glow, but backing a little; "you wrote that chapter first, and then I--I--"
"You rewrote it!" roared Pym. "You dared to meddle with--" He was speechless with fury.
"I tried to keep my hand off," Tommy said, with dignity, "but the thing had to be done, and they are human now."
"Human! who wants them to be human? The fiends seize you, boy! you have even been tinkering with my heroine's personal appearance; what is this you have been doing to her nose?"
"I turned it up slightly, that's all," said Tommy.
"I like them down," roared Pym.
"I prefer them up," said Tommy, stiffly.
"Where," cried Pym, turning over the leaves in a panic, "where is the scene in the burning house?"
"It's out," Tommy explained, "but there is a chapter in its place about--it's mostly about the beauty of the soul being everything, and mere physical beauty nothing. Oh, Mr. Pym, sit down and let me read it to you."
But Pym read it, and a great deal more, for himself. No wonder he stormed, for the impossible had been made not only consistent, but unreadable. The plot was lost for chapters. The characters no longer did anything, and then went and did something else: you were told instead how they did it. You were not allowed to make up your own mind about them: you had to listen to the mind of T. Sandys; he described and he analyzed; the road he had tried to clear through the thicket was impassable for chips.
"A few more weeks of this," said Pym, "and we should all three be turned out into the streets."
Tommy went to bed in an agony of mortification, but presently to his side came Pym.
"Where did you copy this from?" he asked. "'It is when we are thinking of those we love that our noblest thoughts come to us, and the more worthy they are of our love the nobler the thought; hence it is that no one has done the greatest work who did not love God.'"
"I copied it from nowhere," replied Tommy, fiercely; "it's my own."
"Well, it has nothing to do with the story, and so is only a blot on it, and I have no doubt the thing has been said much better before. Still, I suppose it is true."
"It's true," said Tommy; "and yet--"
"Go on. I want to know all about it."
"And yet," Tommy said, puzzled, "I've known noble thoughts come to me when I was listening to a brass band."
Pym chuckled. "Funny things, noble thoughts," he agreed. He read another passage: "'It was the last half-hour of day when I was admitted, with several others, to look upon my friend's dead face. A handkerchief had been laid over it. I raised the handkerchief. I know not what the others were thinking, but the last time we met he had told me something, it was not much--only that no woman had ever kissed him.