'What's the name?
What?
Magnus ?--No, don't stock him.

No demand.

We could get you a copy, sir...' There it is.

Why not laugh at it?
I was doing perhaps the most useless thing in the world.

A commonplace little water-colour, hung on a wall, can give happiness to heaps of people; a poor piece of music can do a thousand things, good and bad, but an unsuccessful novel--twenty unsuccessful novels! A whole row, with the same history awaiting their successors ...