invented another, and another; and I carried on each of these under a separate pseudonym. In fact I split up my personality. As Rose I was a tonsured clerk: as King Clement, I wrote and painted and photographed: as Austin White, I designed decorations: as Francis Engle, I did journalism. There were four of me at least. I always have thought it so inexplicable that none of the authorities--you, Talacryn, with your pretended confidence in me and your majestic immobility towards me,--that none of you ever realized the tremendous amount of energy which was being expended, misdirected, if you like. Certainly no one of you ever made a practical attempt to direct that energy. I was a like a wild colt careering round and round a large meadow. You all looked on and sneered 'Erratic!' Of course I was erratic, for you all did your very best, by stolidity, hints, insinuations, commands, to create obstacles over which I had to jump, through which I had to tear a way; and there was no one to bit and bridle me, to ride me, and to share his couch with me. And of course my pseudonymity has been misunderstood by the stupid, as well as mispresented by the invidious. Most people have only half developed their single personalities. That a man should split his into four and more; and should develop each separately and perfectly, was so abnormal that many normals failed to understand it. So when 'false pretences' and similar shibboleths were shrieked, they also took alarm and howled. But, there were no false pretences. I told my name to everyone whom it concerned. I am not the only person who has traded under pseudonyms or technikryms. Take, for example, the man whose shop I am said to have offered to buy. He himself used a trade-name. He begged for my acquaintance when I was openly living as a tonsured clerk, about a couple of years before my first pseudonym even was thought of. Take, for another example, those priests, Fr. Aleck of Beal, and the Order of Divine Love, who are alleged to have 'charitably maintained' me. By the way, they never did that. They always were paid for my entertainment, in hard coin, and their own price--always. And the Fathers of Divine Love refused me shelter for one night in 1892 at the very time when they are said to have 'charitably maintained' me. They did suggest a common lodging-house at fourpence, though; and I flung back the suggestion in their faces and walked the streets all night. But all these people knew all about me and my pseudonyms. In fact, the very priest who suggested the common lodging-house, was the man on whose advice I adopted my first pseudonym. It was invented by an old lady who chose to call herself my grandmother: she was that priest's patron and penitent. It was approved by him and adopted by me. And there you have the blind and naked truth on that point. It now is pretended that 'King Clement' was a jesuitical machiavellian device of mine, implying royalty, dominions, wealth, and interminable nonsense.