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Disappointed in his hope that I would give him the fictional equivalent of __ne Hundred Ways of Cooking Eggs_ or the __arnet de la Ménagère,_ he began to cross-examine me about my methods of __ollecting material._ Did I keep a notebook or a daily journal? Did I jot down thoughts and phrases in a cardindex? Did I systematically frequent the drawing-rooms of the rich and fashionable? Or did I, on the contrary, inhabit the Sussex downs? or spend my evenings looking for __opy_ in East End gin-palaces? Did I think it was wise to frequent the company of intellectuals? Was it a good thing for a writer of novels to try to be well educated, or should he confine his reading exclusively to other novels? And so on. I did my best to reply to these questions _ as non-committally, of course, as I could. And as the young man still looked rather disappointed, I volunteered a final piece of advice, gratuitously. __y young friend,_ I said, __f you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is to keep a pair of cats._ And with that I left him. I hope, for his own sake, that he took my advice.