I want to know is why. Come, now; out with the good points first.”
“The story,” said Westbrook, deliberately, after a suppressed sigh, “is written around an almost original plot. Characterization—the best you have done. Construction—almost as good, except for a few weak joints which might be strengthened by a few changes and touches. It was a good story, except—”
“I can write English, can’t I?” interrupted Dawe.
“I have always told you,” said the editor, “that you had a style.”
“Then the trouble is the—”
“Same old thing,” said Editor Westbrook. “You work up to your climax like an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I don’t know what form of obstinate madness possesses you, Shack, but that is what you do with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparison with the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of its impossible perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every dénouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your brush that I have so often complained of. If you would rise to the literary pinnacle of your dramatic scenes, and paint them in the high colors that art requires, the postman would leave fewer bulky, self-addressed envelopes at your door.”
“Oh, fiddles and footlights!” cried Dawe, derisively. “You’ve got that old sawmill drama kink in your brain
