As I looked out of the window of the coffee shop, I found myself thinking about which of my created characters I would drink coffee with right now. It must be a pretty dull afternoon, if I'd rather have coffee with my own fictive characters than with a flesh-and-blood person... I couldn’t shake off the thought. What about Alfonz the Nobody? There is no doubt that he is probably my most refined figure, and he is not lacking in life experience either, but no, I would like someone more striking. What about Fats? Hm, that might be an interesting professional conversation because he also harbours ambitions as a writer, but our literary coffee could easily turn into a squabble. I certainly wouldn't want to sit at the same table with Dirty Fred. What a shabby figure! By the time we had finished our coffee, he would have persuaded me to hand over my every last non-existent penny. I know! Smiling Jim, he would be great company! Don Smiling de St. James is a sailor who can grin from ear to ear. What stories he could tell! He visited almost every port in the world and even held a royal post for a while on the Happiness Islands. I wonder what he would say to me, his creator. He might not even believe that it was I, Jenő Rejtő, who created him and his friends. After all, it is my pseudonym, P. Howard that is written on the title page of every volume because it is said that the Hungarian public prefers foreign authors. I hope that one day, not only in my imagined conversations with my characters, but also in reality that my readers will know I penned these works.