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Mr. Brownell: What, six? Then he has more readers than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There are only five fingers on a hand. I think this is conclusive.

Mr. Boynton: Oh, decidedly.

Mr. Follett: But I put him in my book on modern novelists, all of whom were hand picked.

Mr. Galsworthy (with much calmness for one uttering a terrible heresy): Perhaps that’s the difficulty, really. All hand picked. Do you know, I rather believe in literary windfalls. But I beg to withdraw. (And he does.)

The Clerk: Herbert George Wells!

Mr. Wells (sauntering up and speaking with a certain inattention): Respecting my long novel, Joan and Peter, there are some points that need to be made clear. Peter, you know, is called Petah by Joan. Petah is a sapient fellow. He is even able to admire the Germans because, after all, they knew where they were going, they knew what they were after, their education had them headed for something. It had, indeed. I think Petah overlooks the fact that it had headed them for Paris in 1914.