‘I have long been urging him,’ she went on, ‘to take a partner, a coadjutor, a collaborateur, some one who will relieve him from the laborious part of the business, who will work in his style and on his ideas, and whose work should in effect be his, and appear under his name.’
‘You will have difficulty,’ said I, ‘in finding a competent person who would be willing to sacrifice his literary identity.’
‘Yes; there is a difficulty certainly; but I have taken the liberty of hoping that you would help us to obviate it. You are yet young comparatively, and have ample time hereafter to gather a crop of bays on your own account.’
‘What induced you, madam, to think of me in the matter?’
‘Simply a study of what you have written, the style of which seemed suitable to our purpose. If I am offending you, say so, and I will apologise, and go no further.’
I replied that I was willing to hear her offer; that I had no opinion of literary partnerships, but that my means would not allow me to reject point-blank any advantageous proposal.
‘There is nothing derogatory at all, you will acknowledge, in working on other people’s lines; the greatest authors have done it.’
‘Oh, if I can do it honestly, I shall have no scruples on any other score.’
‘Is there any difference between working for us and say for a magazine which publishes your work anonymously? Or in writing under a nom de plume. If there is any deceit in the matter, it rests with us, not with you. But if it be a deceit, then all the old masters were cheats, when they sold as their own, pictures which were in parts done by their scholars, or sculptors who sell as their work, statues of which all the rough work has been done by pupils or workmen. No, indeed; it is your own pride that stands in the way. And pride you know is a sin, and ought to be repented of.’