, my good fellow, young writing wasn't in those days what it is now.
I am thinking less of merit than of high prices, and less of high prices
than of cheap notoriety. Neither of us had ever had our names before the
public--not even in the advertised contents of an unread and unreadable
magazine. No one cared about names in my day, save for the half-dozen
great ones that were then among us; so Pharazyn's and mine never used to
appear in the newspapers, though some of them used our stuff.

"In a manner we were rivals, for we were writing the same sort of thing
for the same sort of publications, and that was how we had come
together; but never was rivalry friendlier, or mutually more helpful.
Our parts were strangely complementary; if I could understand for the
life of me the secret of collaboration, which has always been a mystery
to me, I should say that I might have collaborated with Pharazyn almost
ideally. I had the better of him in point of education, and would have
turned single sentences against him for all he was worth; and I don't
mind saying so, for there my superiority ended. When he had a story to
tell, he told it with a swing and impetus which I coveted him, as well I
might to this day; and if he was oftener without anything to write
about, his ideas would pay twenty shillings in the pound, in strength
and originality, where mine made some contemptible composition in pence.
That is why I have been a failure at fiction--oh, yes, I have! That is
why Pharazyn would have succeeded, if only he had stuck to plain
ordinary narrative prose.

[Illustration: "HE SKETCHED THE NEW STORY."]

"The idea he was unable to keep within his own breast, on the evening of
which I am telling you, was as new, and simple, and dramatic as any that
ever intoxicated the soul of story-teller or made a brother author green
with envy. I can see him now, as I watched him that night, flinging to
and fro with his quick, nervous stride, while he sketched the new
story--bit by bit, and often the wrong bit foremost; but all with his
own flashing vividness, which makes me so sorry--so sorry whenever I
think of it. At moments he would stand still before the chair on which I
sat intent, and beat one hand upon the other, and look down at me with a
grand, wondering smile, as though he himself could hardly believe what
the gods had put into his head, or that the gift was real gold, it
glittered so at first sight. On that point I could reassure him. M