But original as the idea is, you perceive I have not used it. I could not bear to. He thought of it first. It belonged to him. If I used it, the originality would not be mine, but his. So I have deliberately written the story in my own hackneyed way.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HONORABLE HINKY DINK
Has it ever struck you that our mental attitude toward famous men varies in this respect: that while we think of some of them as human beings with whom we might conceivably shake hands and have a chat, we think of others as legendary creatures, strange and remote—beings hardly to be looked upon by human eyes?
Some years since, in the courtyard of a hotel in Paris, I met a friend of mine. He was hurrying in the direction of the bar.
"Come on," he beckoned. "There are some people here you'll want to meet."
I followed him in and to a table at which two men were seated. One proved to be Alfred Sutro; the other Maurice Maeterlinck.
To meet Mr. Sutro was delightful, but it was conceivable. Not so Maeterlinck. To shake hands with him, to sit at the same table, to see that he wore a black coat, a stiff collar (it was too large for him), a black string tie, a square-crowned derby hat; to see him seated in a bar sipping beer like any man—that was not conceivable.
I sat there speechless, trying to convince myself of what I saw.