“I should say so!  Why, you fit in everywhere—­science, theology, natural history—­and then the all-for-the-best element which is so popular just now.  Why, you come right in with the How-to-Relax series, and they sell way up in the millions.  And then the book’s so full of tenderness—­there are such lovely things in it about flowers and children.  I didn’t know an old Dryasdust like you could have such a lot of sentiment in him.  Why, I actually caught myself snivelling over that passage about the snowdrops piercing the frozen earth; and my wife was saying the other day that, since she’s read ‘The Vital Thing,’ she begins to think you must write the ‘What-Cheer Column,’ in the Inglenook." He threw back his head with a laugh which ended in the inspired cry:  “And, by George, sir, when the thing begins to slow off we’ll start somebody writing against it, and that will run us straight into another hundred thousand.”

And as earnest of this belief he drew the Professor a supplementary cheque.

V

Mrs. Linyard’s knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had been trying to persuade the Professor to be taken by flashlight at his study table for the Christmas number of the Inglenook.  On this point the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the unwonted smile with which he welcomed his wife’s intrusion showed that his defences were weakening.

The lady from the Inglenook took the hint with professional promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the elastic around her note-book:  “I shan’t let you forget me, Professor.”

The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his wife’s question:  “Do they pay you for these interviews, Samuel?”

The Professor looked at her with sudden attention.  “Not directly,” he said, wondering at her expression.

She sank down with a sigh.  “Indirectly, then?”

“What is the matter, my dear?  I gave you Harviss’s second cheque the other day—­”

Her tears arrested him.  “Don’t be hard on the boy, Samuel!  I really believe your success has turned his head.”

“The boy—­what boy?  My success—?  Explain yourself, Susan!”

“It’s only that Jack has—­has borrowed some money—­which he can’t repay.  But you mustn’t think him altogether to blame, Samuel.  Since the success of your book he has been asked about so much—­it’s given the children quite a different position.  Millicent says that wherever they go the first question asked is, ’Are you any relation of the author of “The Vital Thing"?’ Of course we’re all very proud of the book; but it entails obligations which you may not have thought of in writing it.”

The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the study-table which he had just successfully defended from the camera of the Inglenook.  He took up an envelope bearing the name of a popular weekly paper.