The Master Mummer

"If we can possibly prevent it," I said slowly, "you shall never return there." She was calmer than I had expected, but it was a terrible look which she flashed upon us. "I do not know any reason" Isobel answered, "why I should do your bidding." The Master Mummer Sheets of virgin manuscript paper littered my desk, the smoke of much uselessly consumed tobacco hung about the room in a little cloud. Many a time I had dipped my pen in the ink, only to find myself a few minutes later scrawling ridiculous little figures upon the margin of my blotting-pad. It was not at all an auspicious start for one who sought immortality. There came a growl presently from the other side of the room, where Mabane, attired in a disreputable smock, with a short black pipe in the corner of his mouth, was industriously defacing a small canvas. Mabane was tall and fair and lean, with a mass of refractory hair which was the despair of his barber; a Scotchman with keen blue eyes, and humorous mouth amply redeeming his face from the plainness which would otherwise have been its lot. He also was in search of immortality. "Make a start for Heaven's sake, Arnold," he implored. "To look at you is an incitement to laziness. The world's full of things to write about. Make a choice and have done with it. Write something, even if you have to tear it up afterwards." I turned round in my chair and regarded Mabane reproachfully. "Get on with your pot-boiler, and leave me alone, Allan," I said. "You do not understand my difficulties in the least. It is simply a matter of selection. My brain is full of ideas—brimming over. I want to be sure that I am choosing the best." There came to me from across the room a grunt of contempt. "Pot-boiler indeed! What about short stories at ten guineas a time, must begin in the middle, scented and padded to order, Anthony Hopeish, with the sugar of Austin Dobson and the pepper of Kipling shaken on ad lib. ? Man alive, do you know what pot-boilers are? It's a perfect conservatory you're living in. Got any tobacco, Arnold?" I jerked my pouch across the room, and it was caught with a deft little backward swing of the hand. Allan Mabane was an M.C.C. man, and a