Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/179

 returned to work. The overtaxed organs had insisted upon a halt."

M. Edmond About gives an interesting account which describes Dumas's method of working. "I can still see on our hotel table," he says, "the first draft of the 'Compagnons de Jehu.' It was a thick pile of school-paper, cut in four, and covered with a neat little writing—an excellent rough sketch drawn up by a skilled assistant according to the master's original design. Dumas worked at it in his own manner—scattering wit broadcast through the pages as he wrote, each little slip of white (? pasted) on a great sheet of blue."

If it can be truly said of Dumas that "panting Time toiled after him in vain," it is just as true that he was ever toiling in the arrears of his own work—ever striving to keep pace with the demand for copy. "To be continued in our next"—it was the slave's warning cry at the classic feast. In his amusing preface to Grisier's "Arms and the Duel," Dumas confesses that there were certain extraordinary pledges which he could not fulfil unless forcibly detached from his regular work. This pressure on his time, coupled with a dislike of ridicule, made him, like Balzac, shun his days in uniform, on duty as a National guard, and accordingly the hours of "guard-room" imprisonment due from him mounted up enormously. Monpeou the