But there were ways and means, and that sick man out in the desert was going to get his too. I’ll get you, Sammy. I’ll cut you to pieces, I’ll make you wish you were dead and buried a long time ago. The pen is mightier than the sword, Sammy boy, but the pen of Arturo Bandini is mightier still. Because my time has come, Sir. And now you get yours.

I sat down and read his stories. I made notes on every line and sentence and paragraph of it. The writing was pretty terrible, a first effort, clumsy stuff, vague, jerky, absurd. Hour after hour I sat there consuming cigarettes and laughing wildly at Sammy’s efforts, gloating over them, rubbing my hands together gleefully. Oh boy, would I lay him low! I jumped up and strutted around the room, shadow-boxing: take that, Sammy boy, and that, and how do you like this left hook, and how do you like this right cross, zingo, bingo, bang, biff, blooey!

I turned around and saw the crease on the bed where Camilla had been seated, the sensuous contour where her thighs and hips had sunk beneath the softness of the blue chenille bedspread. Then I forgot Sammy, and wild with longing I threw myself upon my knees before the spot and kissed it reverently.

‘Camilla, I love you!’

And when I had worn the sensation to vaporous nothingness, I got up, disgusted with myself, black awful Arturo Bandini, black vile dog.

I sat down and grimly went to work on my letter of criticism to Sammy.

Dear Sammy,

That little whore was here tonight; you know, Sammy, the little Greaser dame with a wonderful figure and a mind for a moron. She presented me with certain alleged writings purportedly written by yourself. Furthermore she stated the man with the scythe is about to mow you under. Under ordinary circumstances I would call this a tragic situation. But having read the bile your manuscripts contain, let me speak for the world at large and say at once that your departure is everybody’s good fortune. You can’t write, Sammy, I suggest you concentrate on the business of putting your idiotic soul in order these last days before you leave a world that sighs with relief at your departure. I wish I could honestly say that I hate to see you go. I wish too that, like myself, you could endow posterity with something like a monument to your days upon this earth. But since this is so obviously impossible, let me urge you to be without bitterness in your final days. Destiny has indeed been unkind to you. Like the rest of the world, I suppose you too are glad that in a short time all will be finished, and the ink spot you have splattered will never be examined from a larger view. I speak for all sensible, civilized men when I urge you to burn this mass of literary manure and thereafter stay away from pen and ink. If you have a typewriter, the same holds true; because even the typing in this manuscript is a disgrace. If, however, you persist in your pitiful desire to write, by all means send me the pap you compose. I found at least you are amusing. Not deliberately, of course.