“Two years!” we exclaimed. “And why?”
“To get the atmosphere.”
“The steam?” we questioned.
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Afterthought, “I did that separately. I took a course in steam at a technical school.”
“Is it possible?” we said, our heart beginning to sink again. “Was all that necessary?”
“I don’t see how one could do it otherwise. The story opens, as no doubt you remember—tea?—in the boiler room of the laundry.”
“Yes,” we said, moving our leg—“no, thank you.”
“So you see the only possible point d’appui was to begin with a description of the inside of the boiler.”
We nodded.
“A masterly thing,” we said.
“My wife,” interrupted the Great Novelist, who was sitting with the head of a huge Danish hound in his lap, sharing his buttered toast with the dog while he adjusted a set of trout flies, “is a great worker.”
“Do you always work on that method?” we asked.
“Always,” she answered. “For Frederica of the Factory I spent six months in a knitting mill. For Marguerite of the Mud Flats I made special studies for months and months.”
134
