"'You can imagine how intoxicating this sort of thing is and how the craving for the secret enjoyment it brings may grow on a man. Gradually my father became the victim of a passion fiercer than the gambler's, yet akin to it. For, he never knew whether his money would procure him the gratification he yearned for or not; it was all a fluke. The most promising mysteries would attract no attention, and even a carefully planned novelette, that ran for a week with as many as three characters intervening, would fall still-born upon the tapis of conversation. But every failure only spurred him to fresh effort. All his spare coin, all his savings, went into the tills of the newspaper cashiers. He cut down his expenses to the uttermost farthing, living abstemiously and dressing almost shabbily, and sacrificing everything to his ambitions. It was lucky he was not in a bank; for he had only a moderate income, and who knows to what he might have been driven? At last my father struck oil. Tired of the unfruitful field of romance, whose best days seemed to be over, my father returned to that rudimentary literature which pleases the widest number of readers, while it has the never-failing charm of the primitive for the jaded disciples of culture. He wrote only polysyllabic unintelligibilities. "'Thus for a whole week in every morning agony column he published in large capitals the word: "'_Paddlepintospheroskedaddepoid._ This was an instantaneous success. But it was only a _succès d'estime_. People talked of it, but they could not remember it. It had no seeds of permanence in it. It could never be more than a nine days' wonder. It was an artificial, esoteric novelty, that might please the cliques but could never touch the masses. It lacked the simplicity of real greatness, that unmistakable elemental _cachet_ which commends things to the great heart of the people. After a bit, this dawned upon my father; and, profiting by his experience, he determined to create something which should be immortal. "'For days he racked his brains, unable to please himself. He had the critical fastidiousness of the true artist, and his ideal ever hovered before him, unseizable. Grotesque words floated about him in abundance, every current of air brought him new suggestions, he lived in a world of strange sounds. But the great combination came not. "'Late one night, as he sat brooding by his dying fire, there came a sudden rapping at his chamber door. A flash of joy illumined his face, he started to his feet. "'"I have it!" he cried. "'"Have what?" said his friend Marple, bursting into the room without further parley.