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most to write. No, I meant that all the people who've never read a history book since they left school will feel themselves qualified to pontificate about what you've written. They'll accuse you of whitewashing Richard; "whitewashing" has a derogatory sound that "rehabilitation" hasn't, so they'll call it whitewashing. A few will look up the Britannica, and feel themselves competent to go a little further in the matter. These will slay you instead of flaying you. And the serious historians won't even bother to notice you.'
'By God, I'll make them notice me!' Carradine said. 'Come! That sounds a little more like the spirit that won the Empire.' We haven't got an Empire,' Carradine reminded him. 'Oh, yes, you have,' Grant said equably. 'The only difference between ours and yours is that you acquired yours, economically, in the one latitude, while we got ours in bits all over the world. Had you written any of the book before the awful knowledge of its unoriginality hit you?'
'Yes, I'd done two chapters.'
'What have you done with them? You haven't thrown them away, have you?'
'No. I nearly did. I nearly threw them in the fire.'
'What stopped you?