“If he and I could only remain together I believe I should find my life worth living. It is marvelous, the faculty he has for making me forget myself. I suppose it is due to his animal spirits, his healthy temperament. He is as vigorous and bracing as a whiff of the west wind full in one’s face.” I had never had a friend before. I relished my first taste of friendship. Meantime I was preparing my toilet. In the midst of it Merivale came into the room. “I suppose you know who your future master is to be?” he asked. “No—how should I know?” “Oh, you obtuse blockhead! You————” “It isn’t—you don’t mean to say—” I began, a suspicion of the truth dawning upon me. “Exactly! That is the precise sum and substance of what I mean to say. I mean to say that I’m in need of somebody to help me in certain work that I’m doing. The need is a real one, not an artificial one trumped up for the occasion. I have plenty of cash and am ready to pay what is just for my assistant’s time. You on the other hand are looking about fora means of subsistence. At the same time, luckily, you are just the person to suit my purpose. Hence, as a pure matter of business, I say, Shall we strike a bargain? You are going to be sensible and answer, Yes. Wherefore it only remains for me to explain the nature of the work and thus to convince you that you are not going to draw the salary of a sinecure.” “If this is really true,” I said, “I can’t help telling you that nothing could make me happier. If I can really be of service to you, and if we can really arrange to keep as closely together as such work would bring us, why, my contentment will be greater than I can say.” “Then come into the next room and judge for yourself.” We passed into the sitting-room. Merivale drew up to a table near the window and taking a pen in his hand said, “Look.” He tried the pen’s nib upon the nail of his thumb, dipped it into an inkstand, and applied it to a blank sheet of paper. Then his fingers began to work laboriously to and fro, with the result of tracing a scarcely legible scrawl. One could, however, by dint of taxing the imagination, make out these words: “Good friend, to end all doubt about the present matter, learn by this that a penman’s palsy shakes my fist, and furthermore, that I inherit a lamentable tendency to gout in the wrist.” “Scrivener’s palsy and gout combined,” he added verbally, “and yet I am going to publish a volume of poems in the spring. They’re all down on paper, but no one can decipher them except myself; and if I should be carried off some day unexpectedly, think what the world would lose! My idea is to dictate them to you. We will work from nine till one every day, and devote the rest of our time to relaxation.” “But you take my handwriting for granted,” I interposed. “I think I am safe in doing so,” he replied. “But give me a sample.” I wrote off a few words. “Capital!” was his comment. “Now about the compensation.”