Our interview was long and, to me at any rate, rather embarrassing, since it resolved itself into a searching cross-examination by a past-master in the art.  Who were my parents?  When and where had I been born?  Where had I been educated?  What were my means of livelihood?  What positions had I filled since I went out into the world?  What countries had I visited?  What books had I read?  What books had I written?  To what magazines and reviews had I contributed?  Who were my friends?  Was I fond of music, of painting, of the drama?  Had I a sense of humor?  Had I a good temper or a good control of a bad one?  What languages could I speak or read?  Did I enjoy good health?  Was I of a nervous disposition?  Had I tact and discretion?  Was I a good horseman, a good sailor, a good talker, a good reader?

When it came to asking me whether I was a good horseman and a good sailor, I realized that anyone who expected to find these two qualities combined in one man was quite capable of demanding that his companion-secretary should be able to knit woollen socks, write devotional verse, and compute the phases of the moon.

I remember chuckling to myself over this quaint conceit; I was to learn later that it came unpleasantly near the truth.

Under this close examination I felt that I had made rather a poor showing.  This was due in some measure, no doubt, to the fact that my questioner abruptly left any topic as soon as he discovered that I knew something about it, and began to angle around, with disturbing success, to find the things I did not know about.

At one point, however, I scored a hit.  After I had been put through my paces, a process which seemed to me to end only at the exact point where my questioner could no longer remember the name of anything in the universe about which he could frame an interrogation, it was my turn to ask questions.

Was the person I was addressing the gentleman who needed the companion?

No, he was merely his agent.  As a matter of fact the person on whose behalf he was acting was an American.

I nodded in a non-committal way.

He was also a millionaire.

I bowed the kind of bow that a Frenchman makes when he says Mais parfaitement.

Furthermore he was totally blind.

“Joseph Pulitzer,” I said.

“How in the world did you guess that?” asked my companion.

“That wasn’t a guess,” I replied.  “You advertised for an intelligent man; and this is simply where my intelligence commences to show itself.  An intelligent man couldn’t live as long as I have in the United States without hearing a good deal about Joseph Pulitzer; and, after all, the country isn’t absolutely overrun with blind millionaires.”

At the close of the interview I was told that I would be reported upon.  In the meantime would I kindly send in a written account of the interview, in the fullest possible detail, as a test of my memory, sense of accuracy, and literary style.