And, appropriately enough, I encountered this afternoon M. M., that most charming of persons, who, like Shelley and others, has discovered Italy to be a "paradise of exiles." His friends may guess whom I mean when I say that M. M. is connoisseur of earthquakes social and financial; his existence has been punctuated by them to such an extent that he no longer counts events from dates in the ordinary calendar, from birthdays or Christmas or Easter, but from such and such a disaster affecting himself. Each has left him seemingly more mellow than the last. Just then, however, he was in pensive mood, his face all puckered into wrinkles as he glanced upon the tawny flood rolling beneath that old bridge. There he stood, leaning over the parapet, all by himself. He turned his countenance aside on seeing me, to escape detection, but I drew nigh none the less.
"Go away," he said. "Don't disturb me just now. I am watching the little fishes. Life is so complicated! Let us pray. I have begun a new novel and a new love-affair."
"God prosper both!" I replied, and began to move off.
"Thanks. But supposing the publisher always objects to your choicest paragraphs?"
"I am not altogether surprised, if they are anything like what you once read to me out of your unexpurgated 'House of the Seven Harlots.' Why not try another firm? They might be more accommodating. Try mine."
He shook his head dubiously.
"They are all alike. It is with publishers as with wives: one always wants somebody else's. And when you have them, where's the difference? Ah, let us pray. These little fishes have none of our troubles."
I inquired about the new romance. At first he refused to disclose anything. Then he told me it was to be entitled "With Christ at Harvard," and that it promised some rather novel situations. I shall look forward to its appearance.
What good things one could relate of M. M., but for the risk of incurring his wrath! It is a thousand pities, I often tell him, that he is still alive; I am yearning to write his biography, and cannot afford to wait for his dissolution.
"When I am dead," he always says.