I had acquired, through no endeavor of my own, the reputation of being “literary,” and almost every Friday, I was approached by a Miss Hornblower or Coolidge (who the day before had failed to recognize me as we passed one another on the stairs of the Public Library) who would say, “I’ve been hearing the most interesting things about you. My mother, who is a dear friend of Miss Pride’s, was telling me that you want to be a writer. Do tell me what you’re writing, for I’m dying to hear.” The notion, actually, was Miss Pride’s own and was derived from an innocent statement I had once made to Admiral Nephews. He, because when I first met him I had recognized the passages of poetry he quoted, thought that I had the same taste in literature as his own, and he used to bring me, the moment he had finished with them, the novels he had borrowed from a lending library, and which I was obliged to read out of respect for his thoughtfulness. I had at last grown tired of pretending to share his enthusiasm for books that were barely plausible and were certainly not distinguished, and said of one I had just read, “No, sir, I do not think it is excellent. I could write a better one myself.” This was not true, to be sure, and I did not say it with any intention of proving it, but the Admiral misconstrued my boast and acquired the conviction that I was secretly engaged in writing a book. He reported his suspicion to Miss Pride who did not bother to ascertain its truth and who henceforward told everyone that I was anxious to be a writer and even supported the fiction by such statements as, “But I know Sonie well enough to know that it won’t go to her head. She’s much too sensible to become one of your peculiar Bohemians.” I felt like the person—the person we all are at some moment in our lives—who is asked to play the piano and who protests he does not know how, cannot tell one note from another, and who has never depressed a single key, but who is accused of false modesty and begged to run off just some simple piece. In vain the defendant repeats that he is ignorant, is let off with the threat: “Very well, but you won’t get off so easily next time.” To the girl who was dying to hear about my writing, I replied that she was mistaken, that I had no such lofty opinion of myself, and she would say, exactly like the hostess who swears she has often heard us play, “You writers are all alike. I suppose you won’t even tell me where you publish your stories?”