THE BOY

Really?

THE MAN

Really and truly. You've no idea what a useless misfit I was.

THE BOY

But I read somewhere you had always been brilliant, even as a boy.

THE MAN

Unfortunately ... yes. That was what made it so hard for me. Shall I tell
you about it?

THE BOY

I wish you would!

THE MAN

Brilliance--I'll tell you what that was, at least for me. I wrote several
things that people called "brilliant." One in particular, a little play of
decadent epigram. It was acted by amateurs before an admiring "select"
audience. That was when I was twenty-one. From about sixteen on I had been
acutely miserable--physically miserable. I never knew when I wouldn't
actually cave in. I felt like a bankrupt living on borrowed money. Of