even with him on his next volume. But you know, Labarthe, as long as you
continue to have that innocent look about you, you can't expect to succeed
in newspaper work."

I bore with the ill-humor of my chief. What would he have said if he had
known that I had in my pocket an interview and in my head an anecdote
which were material for a most successful story? And he has never had
either the interview or the story. Since then I have made my way in the
line where he said I should fail. I have lost my innocent look and I earn
my thirty thousand francs a year, and more. I have never had the same
pleasure in the printing of the most profitable, the most brilliant
article that I had in consigning to oblivion the sheets relating my visit
to Nemours. I often think that I have not served the cause of letters as I
wanted to, since, with all my laborious work I have never written a book.
And yet when I recall the irresistible impulse of respect which prevented
me from committing toward a dearly loved master a most profitable but
infamous indiscretion, I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause
of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, now that
Fauchery is no longer of this world, that it seems to me that the time has
come for me to relate my first interview. There is none of which I am more
proud.



MATEO FALCONE

BY PROSPER MERIMEE


On leaving Porto-Vecchio from the northwest and directing his steps