A Rebellious Heroine

"Then," said the Professor, with a dexterous jab of his cue at the pool-balls--"then, in your estimation, an author is a thing to be led about by the nose by the beings he selects for use in his books?"

"You put it in a rather homely fashion," returned Harley; "but, on the whole, that is about the size of it."

"And all a man needs, then, to be an author is an eye and a type- writing machine?" asked the Professor.

"And a regiment of detectives," drawled Dr. Kelly, the young surgeon, "to follow his characters about."

Harley sighed. Surely these men were unsympathetic.

"I can't expect you to grasp the idea exactly," he said, "and I can't explain it to you, because you'd become irreverent if I tried."

"No, we won't," said Kelly. "Go on and explain it to us--I'm bored, and want to be amused."

So Harley went on and tried to explain how the true realist must be an insp