publicity.'
Miss Beazley did her best to make good the erasure. She turned to Piper. 'Two million dollars is a very large sum to be paid for a first novel,' she said, 'it must have come as a great shock to you to find yourself...'
There was another thump as Piper crossed his legs. This time he managed to kick the microphone and spill a glass of water on the table at the same time.
'I'm sorry,' he shouted. Miss Beazley continued to smile expectantly as water dribbled down her leg. 'Yes, it was a great shock.'
'You hadn't expected it to be such a great success?'
'No,' said Piper.
'I wish to God he'd stop twitching like that,' said Geoffrey. 'Anyone would think he'd got St Vitus dance.'
Miss Beazley smiled solicitously. 'I wonder if you'd care to tell us something about how you came to write the book in the first place?' she asked.
Piper gazed stricken into a million homes. 'I didn't...' he began, before jerking his leg forward galvanically and knocking the microphone on to the floor. Frensic shut his eyes. Muffled voices came from the set. When he looked again Miss Beazley's insistent smile filled the screen.
'Pause O Men is a most unusual book,' she was saying. 'It's a love story about a young man who falls in love with a woman much older than himself. Was this something you had had in mind for a long time? I mean was it a theme that had occupied your attention?'
The face of Piper appeared again. Beads of perspiration were visible on his forehead and his mouth was working uncontrollably. 'Yes,' he bawled finally.
'Christ, I don't think I can stand much more of this,' said Geoffrey. 'The poor fellow looks as though he's going to burst.'
'And did it take you long to write?' asked Miss Beazley.
Again Piper struggled for words, looking desperately round the studio as he did so. Finally he took a sip of water and said 'Yes.'
Frensic mopped his brow with a handkerchief.
'To change the subject,' said the indefatigable Miss Beazley whose smile had a positively demented gaiety about it now, 'I understand that your working methods are very much your own. You were telling me earlier that you always write in longhand?'
'Yes,' said Piper.
'And you grind your own ink?'
Piper ground his teeth and nodded.
'This was an idea you got from Kipling?'
'Yes. Something Of Myself. It's in there,' said Piper.
'At least he's warming up,' said Geoffrey only to have his hopes blighted by Miss Beazley's ignorance of Kipling's autobiography.
'Something of yourself is in your novel?' she asked hopefully. Piper glared at her. It was obvious he disliked the question.
'The ink,' he said, 'it's in Something Of Myself.'
Miss Beazley's smile took on a bemused look. 'Is it? The ink?'
'He used to grind it himself,' said Piper, 'or rather he got a boy to grind it for him.'
'A boy? How very interesting,' said Miss Beazley searching for some way out of the maze. Piper refused to help.
'It's blacker if you grind your own Indian ink.'
'I suppose it must be. And you find that using a very black Indian ink helps you to write?'
