"Will you tell me the story of your life, or shall I tell mine first?"
"I don't know that I have any particular story."
"Come, come!"
"Well, I haven't."
"Think again. Let us thrash this thing out. You were born!'
"I was."
"Where?"
"In London."
"Now we seem to be started. I was born in Much Middleford."
"I'm afraid I never heard of it."
"Strange! I know your birth-place quite well. But I have not yet made Much Middleford famous. In fact, I doubt if I ever shall. I am beginning to realize that I am one of the failures."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-six."
"You are twenty-six, and you call yourself a failure? I think that is a shameful thing to say."
"What would you call a man of twenty-six whose only means of making a living was the writing of Gridley Quayle stories? An empire builder?"
(from Something Fresh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
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