The fact is, I began to be immensely amused.
The questions recommenced. One wanted biographical details; another, the origin of my pseudonym. One wished to know if I worked in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening; another, whether I worked sitting or standing up, and also whether I used ruled paper and quill pens. One man asked me whether I thought in English or in French; another, whether General Boulanger had any chance of soon being elected President of the French Republic. If I crossed my legs during the conversation, if I took off my glasses, nothing escaped these journalists; everything was jotted down.
The questions they asked really appeared to me so commonplace, so trivial, that I was almost ashamed to think I was the hero of this little farce.
With the idea of giving them something better worth writing, I launched into anecdotes, and told a few to these interviewers.
This brought about a little scene which was quite comic. If I looked at one reporter a little oftener than the rest, while I told an anecdote, he would turn to his brethren and say:
"This story is for my paper; you have no right to take it down, it was told especially to me."
"Not at all," would cry the others; "it was told to all of us."
In spite of this, the harmony of the meeting was not disturbed; and it was easy to see that an excellent spirit of fellowship prevailed in the fraternity.
With the exception of a phrase or two occasionally jotted down, they took no notes of my answers to their questions; and I wondered how it was possible that, with so few notes, they would manage to make an article of a hundred or two hundred lines, that would be acceptable in an important paper, out of an interview so insignificant and so devoid of interest, according to my idea, as this one.
After having spent nearly two hours over me, the reporters shook hands, expressed themselves as much obliged to me, and went their way.