A few days later, Lerroux invited me to dinner at the Café Inglés. Lerroux, Fuente and I dined together, and then fell to talking. Lerroux asked me to join his party, whereupon I pointed out the qualifications which were lacking in me, which were necessary to a politician. Shortly after, I was nominated as a candidate for the City Council, and I addressed a number of meetings, although always coldly, and never at high tension. While I was with Lerroux, I was never treated save with consideration. Why did I leave his party? Chiefly because of differences as to ideas and as to tactics. Lerroux wished to organize his party into a party of law and order, so that it might be capable of governing, and also to have it friendly with the Army. I was of the opinion that it ought to be a revolutionary party, not in the sense that I was thinking of erecting barricades, but I wished it to contest, to upset things, and to protest against injustice. What Lerroux wanted was a party of orators who could speak at public meetings, a party of office-holders, councillors, provincial deputies and the like, while I held, and still hold, that the only efficacious revolutionary weapon is the printed page. Lerroux was anxious to transform the radical party into something aristocratic and Castilian; I desired to see it retain its Catalan character, and continue to wear blouses and rope-soled shoes. I withdrew from the party for these reasons, to which I may add Lerroux's attitude of indifference upon the occasion of the execution of the stoker of the "Numancia." Not many months after, I met him on the Carrera de San Jerónimo, and he said to me: "I have read your diatribes." "They were not directed against you, but against your politics. I shall never speak ill of you, because I have no cause." "Yes," he replied, "I know that at heart you are one of my friends." AN OFFER A number of years ago, when the Conservatives were in power and Dato was President of the Ministry, Azorín brought me word that Sánchez Guerra, then Minister of the Interior, wished to see me and to have a little talk, as perhaps some way might be arranged by which I might be made deputy. During the afternoon, I accompanied Azorín to the Ministry, and we saw the Minister. He informed me that he would like to have me enter the Congress. "I should like to myself," I replied, "but it would appear to me rather difficult." "But is there not some town where you are well known, and where you have influence?" "No, none whatever." "How would you like then to be deputy to represent the Government?" "As a regular?" "Yes." "As a Conservative?" "Yes." I thought a moment and said: "No, I can never be a Conservative, however it might suit my interest to be so. Try as hard as I might, I should never succeed." "That is the only way in which we can make you deputy." "Well, it cannot be helped! I must resign myself then to amount to nothing."