again, and
then he did, and then I did, and then he did, and we kept on doing it,
and doing it, and I never had such a good time, and he said the same. In
my opinion there isn't anything that is as killing as one of those dear
old ripe pensioners if you know how to snatch it out in a kind of a
fresh sort of original way.

But I wish M. Bourget had read more of our novels before he came. It
is the only way to thoroughly understand a people. When I found I was
coming to Paris, I read 'La Terre'.

A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET

[The preceding squib was assailed in the North American Review
in an article entitled "Mark Twain and Paul Bourget," by Max
O'Rell. The following little note is a Rejoinder to that
article. It is possible that the position assumed here--that
M. Bourget dictated the O'Rell article himself--is untenable.]

You have every right, my dear M. Bourget, to retort upon me by
dictation, if you prefer that method to writing at me with your pen; but
if I may say it without hurt--and certainly I mean no offence--I believe
you would have acquitted yourself better with the pen. With the pen
you are at home; it is your natural weapon; you use it with grace,
eloquence, charm, persuasiveness, when men are to be convinced, and with
formidable effect when they have earned a castigation. But I am sure
I see signs in the above article that you are either unaccustomed
to dictating or are out of practice. If you will re-read it you will
notice, yourself, that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose;
that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it
is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that it loses itself early
and does not find itself any more. There are some other defects, as you
will notice, but I think I have named the main ones. I feel sure that
they are all due to your lack of practice in dictating.

Inasmuch as you had not signed it I had the impression at first that
you had not dictated it. But only for a moment. Certain quite simple and
definite facts reminded me that the article had to come from you, for
the reason that it could not come from any one else without a specific
invitation from you or from me. I mean, it could not except as an
intrusion, a transgression of the law which forbids strangers to mix
into a private dispute between friends, unasked.

Those simple and definite facts were these: I had pub