I made two or three payments, and moved down some of my pictures and furniture to the office in consequence, until the time came when I began to feel that it was humorous for me to be paying for publishing my articles, when I was perfectly well able to dispose of them to any other sheet. Upon my cutting off payments, Ruiz Contreras informed me that a number of the stockholders, among whom was Icaza, who had replaced Reparaz, took the position that if I did not pay, I should not be permitted to write for the magazine. "Very well, I shall not write." And I ceased to write. Previous to my connection with the _Revista Nueva_, I had contributed articles to _El Liberal_, _El Pais_, _El Globo_, _La Justicia_, and _La Voz de Guipúzcoa_, as well as to other publications. A year after my contributions to the _Revista Nueva_, I brought out _Sombre Lives_, which scarcely sold one hundred copies, and, then, a little later, _The House of Aizgorri_, the sale of which fell short of fifty. At this time, Martínez Ruiz published a comedy, _The Power of Love_, for which I provided a prologue, and I went about with the publisher, Rodríguez Serra, through the bookshops, peddling the book. In a shop on the Plaza de Santa Ana, Rodríguez Serra asked the proprietor, not altogether without a touch of malice: "What do you think of this book?" "It would be all right," answered the proprietor, who did not know me, "if anybody knew who Martínez Ruiz was; and who is this Pío Baroja?" Señor Ruiz Contreras says that he made me known, but the fact is that nobody knew me in those days; Señor Ruiz Contreras flatters himself that he did me a great favour by publishing my articles, at a cost to me, at the very least, of two or three _duros_ apiece. If this is to be a patron of letters, I should like to patronize half the planet. As for literary influence, Ruiz Contreras never had any upon me. He was an admirer of Arsène Houssage, Paul Bourget, and other novelists with a sophisticated air, who never meant anything to me. The theatre also obsessed him, a malady which I have never suffered, and he was a devotee of the poet, Zorrilla, in which respect I was unable to share his enthusiasm, nor can I do so today. Finally, he was a political reactionary, while I am a man of radical tendencies. XIII PARISIAN DAYS For the past twenty years I have been in the habit of visiting Paris, not for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the city--to see it once is enough; nor do I go in order to meet French authors, as, for the most part, they consider themselves so immeasurably above Spaniards that there is no way in which a self-respecting person can approach them. I go to meet the members of the Spanish colony, which includes some types which are most interesting. I have gathered a large number of stories and anecdotes in this way, some of which I have incorporated in my books. ESTÉVANEZ