"I have neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction." "Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California ?" she next asked.

"It has not been kind of you.

We of the East have seen to very little of you--too little, indeed, of the Dean of American Letters, the Second." I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment.

"I nearly met you, once, in Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other--you were to lecture, you know.

My train was four hours late." And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen stranded and silent in the midst of our flood of gossip.