And he laughed as though at some flash of memory and made his way into the darkened house.
CHAPTER VI
He Begins His Tale
The work upon which I had been engaged during the evening did not engross my mind that night when I retired. Over and over again I endeavoured to measure the distance I had advanced in knowledge of my neighbour since I stepped out into the moonlight. I wished to realize the exact advantage I would hold over Mac and Bill when we met next morning at breakfast. And that was just what I found myself unable to do. Both of my friends were shrewd enough to smile if I trotted out the startling information that he came from Hertfordshire. Of course, they would say, he must come from somewhere. And if I remarked he had been in the Mediterranean, they would fail to see anything amazing in a sailor having been in the Mediterranean. And then, how was I to convey to them the extraordinary impression he had made upon me by the simple statement that he was an alien? Why, they would exclaim, were not we aliens too? Were not fifty per cent of our acquaintances in the United States aliens? No, it was impossible. They would not understand. And if they would not understand that, how could they be expected to appreciate in all its puzzling simplicity his ejaculation: "An author? Ah!"
It occurred to me with some bitterness that a brutal editor in San Francisco had once complained of my inability to interview people with any success. "God A'mighty! Why the h—l didn't you ask, man!" And to tell the truth, I am not designed by nature for the cut-throat business of interviewing. To stand before a stranger, note-book in hand, and pry into his personal record, always seems to me only a form of infamy midway between blackmail and burglary. There is to me something in any man's personality that is sacred, something before which there should be a veil, never to be drawn aside save in secret places. An effete whim, no doubt. At any rate it explained why I had enjoyed no success as an interviewer, why I had come away from Mr. Carville without extracting from him his age, his income, his position, the names of his employers, his ship, his tailor or his God. Nothing of all this I knew, so ineptly had I managed my chances to obtain it. And yet I felt that, even if I did not possess any concrete morsel of exciting news, I had discovered not only that he had a story, but that he was willing to tell it. And as I fell asleep a conviction came to me that whatever his story might be, however sordid or romantic, I would pass no judgment upon it until I perceived in its genuine significance, the chapter that lay behind that strange utterance, "An author? Ah!"
The next morning I slept late, until past seven in fact. It had ever been an axiom with us that the indolence attributed to the "artistic temperament" was a foolish tradition. Creative power undoubtedly comes late in the day and in the still night-watches; often I had planned a whole book while in bed; but there are many things to do in literature and art besides creation—research, reading, preparing of palettes, writing of letters and so on, that can be better done early. So we breakfasted at half after seven as a rule. I managed to bathe and shave before Mac's reveille sounded on the piano.
As I opened my napkin I saw that Bill had something of importance to impart, and it came out at once.