The Imp and the Author
hour slipped by, and still the Author held the Imp, and still the Imp slept. The Author looked far out to sea; he seemed not to know what was about him; sometimes his lips moved.
Suddenly a quick crunching step sounded behind them. A tall young man came up the beach and stood between them and the water. He caught the Author's eye.
"Well?" he said defiantly.
The Author pointed to the Imp. "'Sh!" he motioned with his lips, and looked silently at the young man. The young man shifted his eyes, and a flush crept over his handsome haggard face.
"Well?" he said again uneasily, adding in a low voice, with a questioning look at the Imp, "They said you went off this way, so I came along. What is it? Same old story, I suppose?"
Still the Author did not speak. He looked steadily at the young man, and the strange depth of his look drew into it irresistibly the hard tired eyes opposite, while the lad shuffled his feet in the sand and tried to speak.
The Author's lips quivered, he fed his eyes on
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