“From life,” answered the editor triumphantly.

The story-writer rose from the bench and gesticulated eloquently but dumbly. He was beggared for words with which to formulate adequately his dissent.

On a bench near by a frowsy loafer opened his red eyes and perceived that his moral support was due to a down-trodden brother.

“Punch him one, Jack,” he called hoarsely to Dawe. “W’at’s he come makin’ a noise like a penny arcade for amongst gen’lemen that comes in the Square to set and think?”

Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of leisure.

“Tell me,” asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, “what especial faults in ‘The Alarum of the Soul’ caused you to throw it down.”

“When Gabriel Murray,” said Westbrook, “goes to his telephone and is told that his finacée has been shot by a burglar, he says—I do not recall the exact words, but—”

“I do,” said Dawe. “He says: ‘Damn Central; she always cuts me off.’ (And then to his friend): ‘Say, Tommy, does a thirty-two bullet make a big hole? It’s kind of hard luck, ain’t it? Could you get me a drink from the sideboard, Tommy? No; straight; nothing on the side.’ ”

“And again,” continued the editor, without pausing for argument, “when Berenice opens the letter from her husband informing her that he has fled with the manicure girl, her words are—let me see—”

“She says,” interposed the author: “ ‘Well, what do you think of that!’ ”

“Absurdly inappropriate words,” said Westbrook, “presenting an anti-climax—plunging the story into hopeless bathos. Worse yet; they mirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal colloquialisms when confronted by sudden tragedy.”

“Wrong,” said Dawe, closing his unshaven jaws doggedly. “I say no man or woman ever spouts highfalutin talk when they go up against a real climax. They talk naturally, and a little worse.”

The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and inside information.

“Say, Westbrook,” said Dawe, pinning him by the lapel, “would you have accepted ‘The Alarum of the Soul’ if you had believed that the actions and words of the characters were true to life in the parts of the story that we discussed?”

“It is very likely that I would, if I believed that way,” said the editor. “But I have explained to you that I do not.”

“If I could prove to you that I am right?”

“I’m sorry, Shack, but I’m afraid I haven’t time to argue any further just now.”

“I don’t want to argue,” said Dawe. “I want to demonstrate to you from life itself that my view is the correct one.”

“How could you do that?” asked Westbrook in a surprised tone.

“Listen,” said the writer seriously. “I have thought of a way. It is important to me that my theory of true- to-life fiction be recognized as correct by the magazines. I’ve fought for it for three years, and I’m down to my last dollar, with two months’ rent due.”