The bakery has been brandished against me in literature.

When I first wrote, it was said:

"This Baroja is a crusty fellow; naturally, he is a baker."

A certain picturesque academician, who was also a dramatist, and given to composing stupendous quintillas and cuartetas in his day, which, despite their flatness, were received with applause, had the inspiration to add:

"All this modernism has been cooked up in Baroja's oven."

Even the Catalans lost no time in throwing the fact of my being a baker in my face, although they are a commercial, manufacturing people. Whether calico is nobler than flour, or flour than calico, I am not sure, but the subject is one for discussion, as Maeztu would have it.

I am an eclectic myself on this score. I prefer flour in the shape of bread with my dinner, but cloth will go further with a man who desires to appear well in public.

When I was serving upon the Town Council, an anonymous publication entitled "Masks Off," printed the following among other gems: "PÍo Baroja is a man of letters who runs a bake-shop."

A Madrid critic recently declared in an American periodical that I had two personalities: one that of a writer and the other of a baker. He was solicitous to let me know later that he intended no harm.

But if I should say to him: "Mr. So and So" is a writer who is excellently posted upon the value of cloth, as his father sold dry-goods, it would appeal to his mind as bad taste.

Another journalist paid his respects to me some months ago in El Parlamentario, saying I baked rolls, oppressed the people, and sucked the blood of the workingman.

It would appear to be more demeaning to own a small factory or a shop, according to the standards of both literary and non-literary circles, than it is to accept money from the corruption funds of the Government, or bounties from the exchequers of foreign Embassies.

When I hear talk nowadays about the dues of the common people, my propensity to laugh is so great that I am apprehensive that my end may be like that of the Greek philosopher in Diogenes Laertius, who died of laughter because he saw an ass eating figs.