“‘They are about eight feet, with the cornice.’

“I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said I. Eight feet,—­eight feet, with the cornice.  I must put that down.

“So I got out my pencil.

“I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not using them as yet.

“I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very early age.  Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began to write in verse?

“He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are themselves the subjects of conversation.

“’Very early,—­I hardly know how early.  I can say truly, as Louise Colet said,

   “‘Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.’”

“I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind enough to translate that line for me.

“’Certainly.  With pleasure.  I made my first verses without knowing how to write them.’

“How interesting!  But I never heard of Louise Colet.  Who was she?

“My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information.

“’Louise the lioness!  Never heard of her?  You have heard of Alphonse Karr?’

“Why,—­yes,—­more or less.  To tell the truth, I am not very well up in French literature.  What had he to do with your lioness?

“’A good deal.  He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it.  By and by he came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing her case-knife.  He took it from her, after getting a cut in his dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette.  He keeps it with an inscription: 

   “Donne a Alphonse Karr
   Par Madame Louise Colet.... 
   Dans le dos.

“Lively little female!’

“I could n’t help thinking that I should n’t have cared to interview the lively little female.  He was evidently tickled with the interest I appeared to take in the story he told me.  That made him feel amiably disposed toward me.

“I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything about his family history and the small events of his boyhood.  Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new concerning my subject.  He had been written about considerably, and the public wouldn’t have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I got.  No matter about many of them now, but here are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to: 

“How do you enjoy being what they call ‘a celebrity,’ or a celebrated man?