md let you go. Now I am going to talk to you !rankly and honestly.” “I wish you would,” Hugh murmured, but he yas n’t at all sure that he wished anything of the ort.
Henley knocked the ashes out of his pipe into a netal tray, refilled it, lighted it, and then puffed neditatively, gazing at Hugh with kind but specula¬ te eyes.
“I think you have ability,” he began slowly. You evidently write with great fluency and coniderable accuracy, and I can find poetic touches ere and there that please me. But you are care¬ ts, abominably careless, lazy. Whatever virtues here are in your themes come from a natural gift, ot from any effort you made to say the thing in the est way. Now, I’m not going to spend any time iscussing these themes in detail; they are n’t worth . »> He pointed his pipe at Hugh. “The point is xactly this,” he said sternly. “I ’ll never spend ny time discussing your themes so long as you turn 1 hasty, shoddy work. I can see right now that ou can get a C in this course without trying. If iat’s all you want, all right, I ’ll give it to you— id let it go at that. The Lord knows that I have lough to do without wasting time on lazy youngers who have n’t sense enough to develop their fts. If you continue to turn in themes like these,
