lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse
Karr?'

"Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in
French literature. What had he to do with your lioness?

"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a
case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he
came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing
her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his
dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He
keeps it with an inscription:

"Donne a Alphonse Karr
Par Madame Louise Colet....
Dans le dos.

"Lively little female!'

"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview
the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest
I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably
disposed toward me.

"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything
about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of
the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my
most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new
concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the
public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I
meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here
are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or
listening to:

"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated
man?

"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love
is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all
through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the
same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It
generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger
of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium,
or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters
that tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and
endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot
before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'

"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called
celebrity?

"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life
to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United St