‘I have long been urging him,’ she went on, ‘to take a partner, a
coadjutor, a _collaborateur_, some one who will relieve him from the
laborious part of the business, who will work in his style and on his
ideas, and whose work should in effect be his, and appear under his
name.’
‘You will have difficulty,’ said I, ‘in finding a competent person who
would be willing to sacrifice his literary identity.’
‘Yes; there is a difficulty certainly; but I have taken the liberty
of hoping that you would help us to obviate it. You are yet young
comparatively, and have ample time hereafter to gather a crop of bays
on your own account.’
‘What induced you, madam, to think of me in the matter?’
‘Simply a study of what you have written, the style of which seemed
suitable to our purpose. If I am offending you, say so, and I will
apologise, and go no further.’
I replied that I was willing to hear her offer; that I had no opinion
of literary partnerships, but that my means would not allow me to
reject point-blank any advantageous proposal.
‘There is nothing derogatory at all, you will acknowledge, in working
on other people’s lines; the greatest authors have done it.’
‘Oh, if I can do it honestly, I shall have no scruples on any other
score.’
‘Is there any difference between working for us and say for a magazine
which publishes your work anonymously? Or in writing under a _nom de
plume_. If there is any deceit in the matter, it rests with us, not
with you. But if it be a deceit, then all the old masters were cheats,
when they sold as their own, pictures which were in parts done by their
scholars, or sculptors who sell as their work, statues of which all
the rough work has been done by pupils or workmen. No, indeed; it is
your own pride that stands in the way. And pride you know is a sin, and
ought to be repented of.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘let me hear the terms.’
The terms were liberal enough. A certain sum per sheet at a higher rate
than I could earn elsewhere, and with the certainty of a market for
all I wrote, which at that time I did not possess. But the bait which
finally took me was the offer of an immediate cheque for fifty pounds
on account and to bind the transaction.