"Thanks, I would rather be happy myself first"--I answered gaily--"I daresay I seem to you selfish,--you are philanthropic I know; I am not." He still regarded me steadily. "You might help your fellow-workers in literature...." I interrupted him with a decided gesture. "That I will never do, my friend, though the heavens should crack! My fellow-workers in literature have kicked me down at every opportunity, and done their best to keep me from earning a bare livelihood,--it is my turn at kicking now, and I will show them as little mercy, as little help, as little sympathy as they have shown me!" "Revenge is sweet!" he quoted sententiously--"I should recommend your starting a high-class half-crown magazine." "Why?" "Can you ask? Just think of the ferocious satisfaction it would give you to receive the manuscripts of your literary enemies, and reject them! To throw their letters into the waste-paper basket, and send back their poems, stories, political articles and what not, with '_Returned with thanks_' or '_Not up to our mark_' type-written on the backs thereof! To dig knives into your rivals through the medium of anonymous criticism! The howling joy of a savage with twenty scalps at his belt would be tame in comparison to it! I was an editor once myself, and I know!" I laughed at his whimsical earnestness. "I daresay you are right,"--I said--"I can grasp the vengeful position thoroughly! But the management of a magazine would be too much trouble to me,--too much of a tie." "_Don't_ manage it! Follow the example of all the big editors, and live out of the business altogether,--but take the profits! You never see the real editor of a leading daily newspaper you know,--you can only interview the sub. The real man is, according to the seasons of the year, at Ascot, in Scotland, at Newmarket, or wintering in Egypt,--he is supposed to be responsible for everything in his journal, but he is generally the last person who knows anything about it. He relies on his 'staff'--a very bad crutch at times,--and when his 'staff' are in a difficulty, they get out of it by saying they are unable to decide without the editor. Meanwhile the editor is miles away, comfortably free from worry. You could bamboozle the public in that way if you liked." "I could, but I shouldn't care to do so," I answered--"If I had a business I would not neglect it. I believe in doing things thoroughly." "So do I!" responded Rimânez promptly. "I am a very thorough-going fellow myself, and whatever my hand findeth to do, I do it with my might!--excuse me for quoting Scripture!" He smiled, a little ironically I thought, then resumed--"Well, in what, at present does your idea of enjoying your heritage consist?" "In publishing my book," I answered. "That very book I could get no one to accept,--I tell you, I will make it the talk of London!"