t was midnight in the Village – or maybe three or four. The longhaired exponent of the moderns stabbed a slab of ham and somehow navigated the torturous course through uncombed shoals and to his mouth. He pointed his fork at me.
“But it’s tripe! You know it’s tripe. You aren’t creating anything. You are taking a predetermined plot and garnishing it to suit the puerile taste of fatuous editors. You are shoveling out words as though they were so many beans. Ugh!” And he speared some scrambled eggs.
“My wares are read anyway,” said I with wicked malice.
“Read! By whom pray tell? Taxi drivers and white wings and vapid stenogs! By garbage collectors and housemaids...”
“And doctors and lawyers and merchants and thieves,” I snapped.
“Why not? But what of it?” He emptied his fork into his bottomless cavern and again waved it before my nose. “What of it I say? You’ll end up your days by never writing anything truly great. All you’ll have to show for it is a stack of dogeared magazines, each one forgotten the instant it is replaced on the stands by the next number.”
