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.
"He's mending the fence!" she exclaimed, passing the toast.
"And going about it as though he knew what he was doing," added Mac.