But couldn't you bear even to see I was dying or dead ?" my host enquired.
"Dead--passe encore; there's nothing so safe.

One never knows what a living artist may do--one has mourned so many.

However, one must make the worst of it.

You must be as dead as you can." "Don't I meet that condition in having just published a book ?" "Adequately, let us hope; for the book's verily a masterpiece." At this moment the parlour-maid appeared in the door that opened from the garden: Paraday lived at no great cost, and the frisk of petticoats, with a timorous "Sherry, sir ?" was about his modest mahogany.

He allowed half his income to his wife, from whom he had succeeded in separating without redundancy of legend.