"I am returning to Paris," said I, "so I have very little time left.
Still, I wish to ask you two questions. First, did you find it hard to
make a name for yourself?"
"Very," said he. "It has taken sixteen hours a day for twenty years."
"Then why didn't you choose an easier name, like Lang, or Johnson?" I
asked.
"What is your other question?" he said, in response. "When I make a
name, I make a name that will be remembered. Sienkiewicz will be
remembered, whether it can be pronounced without rehearsal or not. What
is your other question?"
"Are you going to read from your own works in America, or not? Dr.
Doyle, Dr. Watson, Anthony Hope, Matthew Arnold, and Richard Le
Gallienne have done it. How about yourself?" I said.
Mr. Sienkiewicz sighed.
"I wanted to, but I can't," said he. "Nobody will have me."
"Nonsense," said I. "Have you? They'll all have you."
[Illustration: "ONE MUST BE INTRODUCED"]
"But," he added, "how can I? One must be introduced, and how can
chairmen of the evening introduce me?"
"They have intelligence," said I. And some of them have, so I was quite
right.
"Yes, but they have no enunciation or memory," said he. "I can explain
forever the pronunciation of my name, but your American chairman can
never remember how it is pronounced. I shall _not_ go."
And so I departed from the house of Mr. Sienkiewicz.
I can't really see why, when he was making a name for himself, he did
not choose one that people outside of his own country could speak
occasionally without wrecking their vocal chords--one like Boggs, for
instance.