"She doesn't write like a chambermaid," he reminded me. Whereupon we
fell to studying the very aristocratic chirography employed by my
neighbour in barring me from my own possessions.

After the very worst meal that Frau Schmick had ever cooked, and the
last one that Max under any circumstance would be permitted to serve,
I took myself off once more to the enchanted balcony. I was full of
the fever of romance. A perfect avalanche of situations had been
tumbling through my brain for hours, and, being a provident sort of
chap in my own way, I decided to jot them down on a pad of paper before
they quite escaped me or were submerged by others.

The night was very black and tragic, swift storm clouds having raced
up to cover the moon and stars. With a radiant lanthorn in the window
behind me, I sat down with my pad and my pipe and my pencil. The storm
was not far away. I saw that it would soon be booming about my
stronghold, and realised that my fancy would have to work faster than
it had ever worked before if half that I had in mind was to be
accomplished. Why I should have courted a broken evening on the exposed
balcony, instead of beginning my labours in my study, remains an
unrevealed mystery unless we charge it to the account of a much-abused
eccentricity attributed to genius and which usually turns out to be
arrant stupidity.

I have no patience with the so-called eccentricity of genius. It is
merely an excuse for unkempt hair, dirty finger-nails, unpolished
boots, open placquets, bad manners and a tendency to forget pecuniary
obligations, to say nothing of such trifles as besottednesss, vulgarity
and the superior knack of knowing how to avoid making suitable provision
for one's wife and children. All the shabby short-comings in the