Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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"Hand them over," I said, "I'll read them now."

It was amusing to observe that Allen became hesitant, now that he reached the point, and I knew the way he felt. He was no longer Dr. Southby, but a tyro who desired a favorable judgment or none at all. He was like a young writer in an editor's office, explaining the inner meaning of what he had written so that one could understand it before one read it.

"If it isn't good enough to show me without talking, don't show it," I said. "I've got to be getting home, I can't sit here all night."

"I want you to understand that it's a very rough draft," Allen explained, "not the finished thing, but just the bare skeleton of the idea. I don't want you to think it's the finished thing."

"All right," I said, and reached for the papers, but Allen did not let them go.

"Perhaps you'd better not read the first page," he said. "That's a little turgid. I didn't really get started until page two, and perhaps the first page isn't actually necessary. It's simply setting the scene."