“I have no doubt they would.  Send it to me, and I will look it over; and if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting.  You know everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee,” said the cautious Secretary.

“Very well,—­I will risk it.  After it is read, if it is read, please send it back to me, as I want to sell it to ‘The Sifter,’ or ’The Second Best,’ or some of the paying magazines.”

This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the Pansophian Society.

“I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, ‘The People’s Perennial and Household Inquisitor,’ to make a visit to a certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could concerning him and all that related to him.  I have interviewed a good many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I had never tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite sure how this one would feel about it.  I said as much to the chief, but he pooh-poohed my scruples.  ‘It is n’t our business whether they like it or not,’ said he; ’the public wants it, and what the public wants it’s bound to have, and we are bound to furnish it.  Don’t be afraid of your man; he ’s used to it,—­he’s been pumped often enough to take it easy, and what you’ve got to do is to pump him dry.  You need n’t be modest,—­ask him what you like; he is n’t bound to answer, you know.’

“As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up a little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on my best high-lows.  I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for a visitor from a distance; one of those ‘admiring strangers’ who call in to pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certain distinction in the village circle to which they belong.

“My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his reception-room.  I observed that he managed to get the light full on my face, while his own was in the shade.  I had meant to have his face in the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so as to give him that advantage.  It was like two frigates manoeuvring,—­each trying to get to windward of the other.  I never take out my note-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnest conversation,—­always about himself and his works, of course, if he is an author.

“I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers.  Those who had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them.

“He assented, emphatically, to this statement.  He had, he said, a great many callers.

“I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readers feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish a certain attachment to him.