a few moments he continued: "That is good. You will go and interview
certain men and women, first upon the age at which one loves the most,
next upon the age when one is most loved? Is that your idea? And now to
whom will you go first?"

"I have prepared a list," I replied, and took from my pocket a sheet of
paper. I had jotted down the names of a number of celebrities whom I
proposed to interview on this all-important question, and I began to read
over my list. It contained two ex-government officials, a general, a
Dominican father, four actresses, two café-concert singers, four actors,
two financiers, two lawyers, a surgeon and a lot of literary celebrities.
At some of the names my chief would nod his approval, at others he would
say curtly, with an affectation of American manners, "Bad; strike it off,"
until I came to the name I had kept for the last, that of Pierre Fauchery,
the famous novelist.

"Strike that off," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "He is not on good
terms with us."

"And yet," I suggested, "is there any one whose opinion would be of
greater interest to reading men as well as to women? I had even thought of
beginning with him."

"The devil you had!" interrupted the editor-in-chief. "It is one of
Fauchery's principles not to see any reporters. I have sent him ten if I
have one, and he has shown them all the door. The Boulevard does not
relish such treatment, so we have given him some pretty hard hits."

"Nevertheless, I will have an interview with Fauchery for the Boulevard,"
was my reply. "I am sure of it."