_Guest._ (Stockton stories do not have that effect in the experience of readers!)
_Host._ Some regular story carried through to the end. I would begin a story one morning, continue it the next, and the next, until it ran into the serial. Some of these stories lasted for a long time; one ran through a whole year, I know. I got it all the way from America to Africa.
_Guest._ Perhaps you anticipated reality. For a friend of mine who reads every book of travels in Africa which she can lay hands on, firmly believes that the Dark Continent will be opened up as a pleasure and health resort for the whole world! But what became of the story?
_Host._ Well, a long time after, a portion of it came to light again in “The Great War Syndicate.” The idea of “Negative Gravity” was taken from another day-dream, the hero of which invented all sorts of applications of negative gravity, and from these I made a selection for the printed story.
_Guest._ Delightful--for we may hear from this hero again. I hope he is inexhaustible. How fortunate to have a treasure-house of characters and exploits. You have only to open the door and whatever you want comes out! You don’t have to go to any “Anatomy of Melancholy” or Lemprière, or Old Play, where somebody else is going, too, and will anticipate you--the hard luck of some of the rhyming fraternity!
_Host._ Of course, some suggestions are wholly involuntary. You do not know how or whence they come. I think of a good illustration of this involuntary action of the mind in conjuring up suggestion for a story. Some time ago, as I was lying in a hammock under the trees, I happened to look up through the branches and saw a great patch of blue sky absolutely clear. I said to myself: “Suppose I saw a little black spot appear in that blue sky.” I kept on thinking. Gradually the idea came of a man who _did_ see such a little spot in the clear sky. And now I am working up this notion in a story I call “As One Woman to Another.”
_Guest._ You literally had given you less than the conditions given for describing a circle, for you had but a simple point to start with. One might conclude, all that is necessary is to fix upon some central idea, no matter how slight, and then the rest will come, drawn by a kind of mysterious attraction toward the centre.