Oliver Onions

“ You've been working for nearly twenty years; you've now got what you've been working for almost within your grasp; your affairs are at a most critical stage (oh, don't tell me; I know you're about at the end of your money) ; and here you are, deliberately proposing to withdraw a thing that will probably make your name, and to substitute for it something that ten to one nobody on earth will ever want to read—and small blame to them! ”

“ It is all very well to tell a man who is at the point of exhaustion that only another effort is required of him; if he cannot make it he is as far off as ever....
"Anyway," Oleron summed up, "I'm happier here than I've been for a long time. That's some sort of a justification."
"And doing no work," said Miss Bengough pointedly.
At that a trifling petulance that had been gathering in Oleron came to a head.
"And why should I do nothing but work?" he demanded. "How much happier am I for it? I don't say I don't love my work—when it's done ”

“ Miss Bengough asked.
"I dare say a tramp sleeps in the cellar occasionally. Nobody else."
"Hm!... Well, I'll tell you what I think about it, if you like."
"I should like."
"You'll never work here."
"Oh?" said Oleron quickly. "Why not?"
"You'll never finish Romilly here. Why, I don't know, but you won't. I know it. You'll have to leave before you get on with that book."
He mused for a moment, and then said:
"Isn't that a little—prejudiced, Elsie?"
"Perfectly ridiculous. As an argument it hasn't a leg to stand on. ”