“Excuse me, Mr Miller,” he interrupted, “but don't you think we ought to get down to signing these papers?”

“Why, of course,” I said cheerfully. “Did you bring them all with you? Which one do you think we ought to sign first? By the way, you haven't got a fountain pen you'd like to sell me, have you?”

“Just sign right here,” he said, pretending to ignore my remarks. “And here, that's it. Now then, Mr. Miller, I think I'll say good day – and you'll be hearing from the company in a few days.”

“Better make it sooner,” I remarked, leading him to the door, “because I might change my mind and commit suicide.”

“Why, of course, why yes, Mr. Miller, certainly we will. Good day now, good day!”

Of course the instalment plan breaks down eventually, even if you're an assiduous buyer such as I was. I certainly did my best to keep the manufacturers and the advertising men of America busy, but they were disappointed in me it seems. Everybody was disappointed in me. .But there was one man in particular who was more disappointed in me than any one and that was a man who had really made an effort to befriend me and whom I had let down. I think of him and the way he took me on as his assistant – so readily and graciously – because later, when I was hiring and firing like a 42 horse calibre revolver, I was betrayed right and left myself, but by that time I had become so inoculated that it didn't matter a damn. But this man had gone out of his way to show me that he believed in me. He was the editor of a catalogue for a great mail order house. It was an enormous compendium of horse-shit which was put out once a year and which took the whole year to make ready. I hadn't the slightest idea what it was all about and why I dropped into his office that day I don't know, unless it was because I wanted to get warm, as I had been knocking about the docks all day trying to get a job as a checker or some damned thing. It was cosy in his office and I made him a long speech so as to get thawed out. I didn't know what job to ask for – just a job, I said. He was a sensitive man and very kind– hearted. He seemed to guess that I was a writer, or wanted to be a writer, because soon he was asking me what I liked to read and what was my opinion of this writer and that writer. It just happened that I had a list of books in my pocket – books I was searching for at the public library – and so I brought it out and showed it to him. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed, “do you really read these books?” I modestly shook my head in the affirmative, and then as often happened to me when I was touched off by some silly remark like that, I began to talk about Hamsun's Mysteries which I had just been reading. From then on the man was like putty in my hands. When he asked me if I would like to be his assistant he apologized for offering me such a lowly position; he said I could take my time learning the ins-and-outs of the job, he was sure it would be a cach(?) for me. And then he asked me if he couldn't lend me some money, out of his own pocket until I got paid. Before I could say yes or no he had fished out a twenty dollar bill and thrust it in my hand. Naturally I was touched. I was ready to work like a son of a bitch for him. Assistant editor – it sounded quite good, especially to the creditors in the neighbourhood. And for a while I was so happy to be eating roast beef and chicken and tenderloins of pork that I pretended I liked the job. Actually it was difficult for me to keep awake. What I had to learn I had learned in a week's time. And after that? After that I saw myself doing penal servitude for life. In order to make the best of it I whiled away the time writing stories and essays and long letters to my friends. Perhaps they thought I was writing up new ideas for the company, because for quite a while nobody paid any attention to me. I thought it was a wonderful job. I had almost the whole day to myself, for my writing, having learned to dispose of the company's work in about an hour's time. I was so enthusiastic about my own private work that I gave orders to my underlings not to disturb me except at stipulated moments. I was sailing along like a breeze, the company paying me regularly and the slave-drivers doing the work I had mapped out for them, when one day, just when I am in the midst of an important essay on The Anti-Christ, a man whom I had never seen before walks up to my desk, bends over my shoulder, and in a sarcastic tone of voice begins to read aloud what I had just written. I didn't need to inquire who he was or what he was up to – the only thought in my head was, and that I repeated to myself frantically – Will I get an extra week's pay ? When it came time to bid good-bye to my benefactor I felt a little ashamed of myself, particularly when he said, right off the bat like – “I tried to get you an extra week's pay but they wouldn't hear of it. I wish there was something I could do for you – you're only standing in your own way, you know. To tell the truth, I still have the greatest faith in you – but I'm afraid you're going to have a hard time of it, for a while. You don't fit in anywhere. Some day you'll make a great writer, I feel sure of it. Well, excuse me,” he added, shaking hands with me warmly, “I've got to see the boss. Good luck to you!”

I felt a bit cut up about the incident. I.wished it had been possible to prove to him then and there that his faith was justified. I wished I could have justified myself before the whole world at that moment: I would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge if it would have convinced people that I wasn't a heartless son of a bitch. I had a heart as big as a whale, as I was soon to prove, but nobody was examining into my heart. Everybody was being let down hard – not only the instalment companies, but the landlord, the butcher, the baker, the gas, water and electricity devils, everybody. If only I could get to believe in this business of work! To save my life I couldn't see it. I could only see that people were working their balls off because they didn't know any better. I thought of the speech I had made which won me the job. In some ways I was very much like Herr Nagel myself. No telling from minute to minute what I would do. No knowing whether I was a monster or a saint Like so many wonderful men of our time. Herr Nagel was a desperate man – and it was this very desperation which made him such a likeable chap. Hamsun didn't know what to make of this character himself: he knew he existed, and he knew that there was something more to him than a mere buffoon and a mysrifier. I think he loved Herr Nagel more than any other character he created. And why? Because Herr Nagel was the unacknowledged saint which every artist is – the man who is ridiculed because his solutions, which are truly profound, seem too simple for the world. No man wants to be an artist – he is driven to it because the world refuses to recognize his proper leadership. Work meant nothing to me, because the real work to be done was being evaded. People regarded me as lazy and shiftless, but on the contrary I was an exceedingly active individual. Even if it was just hunting for a piece of tail, that was something, and well worth while, especially if compared to other forms of activity -such as making buttons or turning screws, or even removing appendixes. And why did people listen to me so readily when I applied for a job? Why did they find me entertaining? For the reason, no doubt, that I had always spent my time profitably. I brought them gifts – from my hours at the public library, from my idle ramblings through the streets, from my intimate experiences with women, from my afternoons at the burlesque, from my visits to the museum and the art galleries. Had I been a dud, just a poor honest bugger who wanted to work his balls off for so much a week, they wouldn't have offered me the jobs they did, nor would they have handed me cigars or taken me to lunch or loaned me money as they frequently did. I must have had something to offer which perhaps unknowingly they prized beyond horsepower or technical ability. I didn't know myself what it was, because I had neither pride, nor vanity, nor envy. About the big issues I was dear, but confronted by the petty details of life I was bewildered. I had to witness this same bewilderment on a colossal scale before I could grasp what it was all about Ordinary men are often quicker in sizing up the practical situation: their ego is commensurate with the demands made upon it: the world is not very different from what they imagine it to be. But a man who is completely out of step with the rest of the world is either suffering from a colossal inflation of his ego or else the ego is so submerged as to be practically non-existent. Herr Nagel had to dive off the deep end in search of his true ego; his existence was a mystery, to himself and to every one else. I couldn't afford to leave things hanging in suspense that way – the mystery was too intriguing. Even if I had to rub myself like a cat against every human being I encountered, I was going to get to the bottom of it. Rub long enough and hard enough and the spark will come!