And so, people without a hall-mark of their own are always trying to get the loan of somebody else’s.

As a rule, that kind of a person sees only one side of the case.  He sees that his invention or his painting or his book is—­apparently—­a trifle better than you yourself can do, therefore why shouldn’t you be willing to put your hall-mark on it?  You will be giving the purchaser his full money’s worth; so who is hurt, and where is the harm?  Besides, are you not helping a struggling fellow-craftsman, and is it not your duty to do that?

That side is plenty clear enough to him, but he can’t and won’t see the other side, to-wit:  that you are a rascal if you put your hall-mark upon a thing which you did not produce yourself, howsoever good it may be.  How simple that is; and yet there are not two applicants in a hundred who can, be made to see it.

When one receives an application of this sort, his first emotion is an indignant sense of insult; his first deed is the penning of a sharp answer.  He blames nobody but that other person.  That person is a very base being; he must be; he would degrade himself for money, otherwise it would not occur to him that you would do such a thing.  But all the same, that application has done its work, and taken you down in your own estimation.  You recognize that everybody hasn’t as high an opinion of you as you have of yourself; and in spite of you there ensues an interval during which you are not, in your own estimation as fine a bird as you were before.

However, being old and experienced, you do not mail your sharp letter, but leave it lying a day.  That saves you.  For by that time you have begun to reflect that you are a person who deals in exaggerations—­and exaggerations are lies.  You meant yours to be playful, and thought you made them unmistakably so.  But you couldn’t make them playfulnesses to a man who has no sense of the playful and can see nothing but the serious side of things.  You rattle on quite playfully, and with measureless extravagance, about how you wept at the tomb of Adam; and all in good time you find to your astonishment that no end of people took you at your word and believed you.  And presently they find out that you were not in earnest.  They have been deceived; therefore, (as they argue—­and there is a sort of argument in it,) you are a deceiver.  If you will deceive in one way, why shouldn’t you in another?  So they apply for the use of your trade-mark.  You are amazed and affronted.  You retort that you are not that kind of person.  Then they are amazed and affronted; and wonder “since when?”

By this time you have got your bearings.  You realize that perhaps there is a little blame on both sides.  You are in the right frame, now.  So you write a letter void of offense, declining.  You mail this one; you pigeon-hole the other.

That is, being old and experienced, you do, but early in your career, you don’t:  you mail the first one.