“Ah,” he said, “you shall have a go at the beehives, then, right away?”
We assured him that we were willing to postpone a go at the beehives till later.
“Come along, then, to the styes,” said the Great Novelist, and he added, “Perhaps you’re not much of a breeder.”
We blushed. We thought of the five little faces around the table for which we provide food by writing our interviews.
“No,” we said, “we were not much of a breeder.”
“Now then,” said the Great Novelist as we reached our goal, “how do you like this stye?”
“Very much indeed,” we said.
“I’ve put in a new tile draining—my own plan. You notice how sweet it keeps the stye.”
We had not noticed this.
“I am afraid,” said the Novelist, “that the pigs are all asleep inside.”
We begged him on no account to waken them. He offered to open the little door at the side and let us crawl in. We insisted that we could not think of intruding.
“What we would like,” we said, “is to hear something of your methods of work in novel writing.” We said this with very peculiar conviction. Quite apart from the immediate pur-
