"You don't, eh? Well then, there's the contract. Smell it." He thrust it against her nose.
She snatched it from him and, holding it between her soap-and-painty fingers, ran her eye over the first clause.
"'The work at present entitled "Trixie"'" she read aloud. "What work is that, Bisham? You don't mean to say you've been writing a narrative poem called 'Trixie'; because, if so, I can't bear it, and I shall scream and bite great pieces out of the furniture."
"Oh, no," he said, "make your mind easy. It's not a narrative poem. The fact is—" he spoke as casually as he could—"it's a novel, Chloë; a prose fiction, you know. Capper and Ironsides are going to do it at once. They've given me five hundred on account and a twenty per cent. royalty, rising to thirty.
