"Who was that fellow," asked Fidu, "who passed me just now with such a
wild, wild look in his eye?"
"That fellow," replied Gud, "was an author who just spent a week-end
with me."
"And what did you do to him?" asked Fidu. "He was as crazy as the
nebular hypothesis."
"Upon his request I criticized his book, which he insisted on reading to
me."
"But what did you say about it?" demanded Fidu, "he looked as locoed as
a lop-eared logarithm."
"I made several criticisms. I told him that his plot was choppy, and
that most of it was stale; that the work lacked sadly in originality and
there was considerable repetition. I said it was very melodramatic in
spots and that it had entirely too many murders, and that many of the
biggest murderers seemed to escape without punishment. I also told him
that it was full of sordid realism and most unhappy endings, that it was
overloaded with action, and worst of all, it utterly lacked any evidence
of a distinct moral purpose."
"Well no wonder," said Fidu, "that the poor fellow was raving; you made,
if I may say so, quite a severe criticism."
"I grant that, but his book deserved it--everything I said about it was
absolutely true."
"What did he call his book?" asked Fidu.
"He called it," replied Gud, "'An Outline of History.'"