It has often happened, while walking with a comrade, a stranger or an adversary, that I would find him hard, defiant, rebellious at every touch. Thereupon, I would set out openly, under his very eye, to capture him. I would begin to speak to him about himself. I would say to him: “The unique things about you are....” And I would confide to him everything I thought about him, being particularly careful to say nothing more about myself. I would interest myself in him, not fictitiously--that is a barren and a perilous game--but with all my heart, with all my intelligence. I would tell him what I knew, what I already possessed of him, his virtues and his faults. Confused or irritated, he would come to my feet, he would appear as if before a bar to give thanks or to plead, to show his claws or to purr. The things I had said to him might be very severe; I still felt that he was grateful to me for having cared about him, even in order to attack him. No longer was he in any haste to leave me. Often he would come back on the days that followed and make me unexpected visits; though I could see that he was provoked, I knew nevertheless that he had come to pay homage, to attest that he was a faithful subject. “The unique things about you are”.... That is a chance phrase. There are others, there are a thousand of them. When you are ready, a grip of the hand or some other human sign may take its place. I remember the story of a certain prefect who, having no worse enemy than a traitor in his department, had the happy thought one day of asking him to have a drink and going away without paying for it. This extraordinary proof of confidence attached the man to him forever. Not that all your victims will be so tremblingly easy. There are proud souls who set a high price on their conquest, fantastic and sick souls whom one has to seize suddenly and overthrow almost before they are aware of it. You must set the time and choose the hour of the attack. Do not accost the business man in the roar of the Exchange; attempt the field rather at the hour when, wearied, he is counting over and reckoning his disillusionments. Do not seize the man of action on the battlefield, but in the moment of leisure when he does not know what to do with his solitude. What marvelous opportunities must the shy Las Casas have glimpsed at Saint Helena, even though he was pursuing other aims! I once saw a simple soul publicly congratulate a master surgeon whose skill had for long years placed him above all felicitations. And the celebrated man blushed, bowed, gave in. A successful lawyer said to me one day: “Each one of my clients imagines that I think only of him, that I occupy myself exclusively with him.”