to make me more prosperous. Indeed, one of the reasons I was so glad to see you was that I thought, perhaps, you could help me to spend some money.
The line about the interruptions, I should explain, was simply a fabrication of Peter's. If I have set our conversations down as monologues on his part, that is just how they occurred. Aside from Philip Moeller and Arnold Daly, I have never known any one to talk so much, and my rôle with Peter, as with them, was that of listener. To continue, I should have known enough, even so early in our acquaintance, not to be astonished by anything he might do, but if there had been a mirror in the room, which there was not, I fancy I might have looked into the most exasperatingly astonished face I had ever seen up to that time. I managed, however, to laugh. Peter laughed, too, and sat down. George Moore leaped to his knee and George Sand to his shoulder, rubbing her magnificent orange brush across his face.
And how about your book? I asked.
It's coming . . . coming fast.
Are you still collecting notes?
Notes? . . . O! you are remembering what I was doing in Paris. That was only an experiment. . . . I was on the wrong track. . . . I threw them all away! I couldn't do anything with that. . . . I'm done with such nonsense.
I couldn't be astonished any more.
What are you doing now?
