`Je l'etais a cette epoque. Perhaps I still am. Yes, I'm a
Catholic Diabolist.'

This profession he made in an almost cursory tone. I could see
that what was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read
`Negations.' His pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I felt
as one who is about to be examined, viva voce, on the very
subject in which he is shakiest. I hastily asked him how soon
his poems were to be published. `Next week,' he told me.

`And are they to be published without a title?'

`No. I found a title, at last. But I shan't tell you what it is,' as
though I had been so impertinent as to inquire. `I am not sure
that it wholly satisfies me. But it is the best I can find. It
suggests something of the quality of the poems.... Strange
growths, natural and wild, yet exquisite,' he added, `and many-
hued, and full of poisons.'

I asked him what he thought of Baudelaire. He uttered the snort
that was his laugh, and `Baudelaire,' he said, `was a bourgeois
malgre lui.' France had had only one poet: Villon; `and two-
thirds of Villon were sheer journalism.' Verlaine was `an
epicier malgre lui.' Altogether, rather to my surprise, he rated
French literature lower than English. There were `passages' in
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. But `I,' he summed up, `owe nothing to
France.' He nodded at me. `You'll see,' he predicted.

I did not, when the time came, quite see that. I thought the
author of `Fungoids' did--unconsciously, of course--owe