Then I tried an all-round cannon--published one thing under one name and another under another, and sat still to watch. A gentleman, who also speaks with authority on Literature and Art, came to me and said: "I don't deny that there is a great deal of clever and superficial fooling in that last thing of yours in the--I've forgotten what it was called--but do you yourself think that you have that curious, subtle grip on and instinct of matters Oriental that that other man shows in his study of native life?" And he mentioned the name of my Other Self. I bowed my head, and my shoulders shook with repentance and grief. "No," said I. "It's so true," said he. "Yes," said I. "So feeling," said he. "Indeed it is," said I. "Such honest work, too!" said he. "Oh, awful!" said I. "Think it over," said he, "and try to follow his path." "I will," said I. And when he left I danced sarabands with the housemaid of the fan-teeth till she wanted to know whether I had bought "spirruts." Then another man came along and sat on my sofa and hailed me as a brother. "And I know that we are kindred souls," said he, "because I feel sure that you have evolved all the dreamy mystery and curious brutality of the British soldier from the pure realm of fancy." "I did," I said. "If you went into a barrack-room you would see at once." "Faugh!" said he. "What have we to do with barrack-rooms? The pure air of fancy feeds us both; keep to that. If you are trammelled by the bitter, _bornée_ truth, you are lost. You die the death of Zola. Invention is the only test of creation." "Of course," said I. "Zola's a bold, bad man. Not a patch on _you_." I hadn't caught his name, but I fancied that would prevent him flinging himself about on my sofa, which is a cheap one. "I don't say that altogether," he said. "He has his strong points. But he is deficient in imaginative constructiveness. _You_, I see from what you have said, will belong to the Neo-Gynekalistic school." I knew "Gyne" meant something about cow-killing, and was prepared to hedge when he said good-bye, and wrote an article about my ways and works, which brought another man to my door spouting foam. "Great Landor's ghost!" he said. "What under the stars has possessed you to join the Gynekalistic lot?" "I haven't," I said. "I believe in municipal regulation of slaughter-houses, if there is a strong Deputy Commissioner to control the Muhammadan butchers, especially in the hot weather, but...." "This is madness," said he. "Your reputation is at stake. You must make it clear to the world that you have nothing whatever to do with the flatulent, unballasted fiction of...." "Do you suppose the world cares a tuppeny dam?" said I. Then he raged afresh, and left me, pointing out that the Gynewallahs wrote about nothing but women--which seems rather an unlimited subject--and that I would die the death of a French author whose name I have forgotten. But it wasn't Zola this time.