One day, some three weeks before the end of the year, toward two
in the afternoon, Condy sat in his usual corner of the club,
behind the screen, writing rapidly. His coat was off and the
stump of a cigar was between his teeth. At his elbow was the
rectangular block of his manuscript. During the last week the
story had run from him with a facility that had surprised and
delighted him; words came to him without effort, ranging
themselves into line with the promptitude of well-drilled
soldiery; sentences and paragraphs marched down the clean-swept
spaces of his paper, like companies and platoons defiling upon
review; his chapters were brigades that he marshaled at will,
falling them in one behind the other, each preceded by its
chapter-head, like an officer in the space between two divisions.
In the guise of a commander-in-chief sitting his horse upon an
eminence that overlooked the field of operations, Condy at last
took in the entire situation at a glance, and, with the force and
precision of a machine, marched his forces straight to the goal he
had set for himself so long a time before.
Then at length he took a fresh penful of ink, squared his elbows,
drew closer to the desk. and with a single swift spurt of the pen
wrote the last line of his novel, dropping the pen upon the
instant and pressing the blotter over the words as though setting
a seal of approval upon the completed task.
"There!" he muttered, between his teeth; "I've done for YOU!"
That same afternoon he read the last chapter to Blix, and she
helped him to prepare the manuscript for expressage.
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