●I have noticed that when someone asks for you on the telephone and,
finding you out, leaves a message begging you to call him up the mo-
ment you come in, and it’s important, the matter is more often impor-
tant to him than to you.
어떤 사람이 당신이 없는 사이 당신아 돌아오는대로 바로 전화해달라는 쪽지를 남겼을 때
●When it comes to making you a present or
doing you a favour most people are able to hold their impatience within
reasonable bounds. So when I got back to my lodgings with just enough
time to have a drink, a cigarette, and to read my paper before dressing
for dinner, and was told by Miss Fellows, my landlady, that Mr. Alroy
Kear wished me to ring him up at once, I felt that I could safely ignore
his request.
“Is that the writer?” she asked me.
“It is.”
She gave the telephone a friendly glance.
“Shall I get him?”
“No, thank you.”
“What shall I say if he rings again?”
“Ask him to leave a message.”
“Very good, sir.”
She pursed her lips. She took the empty siphon, swept the room with
a look to see that it was tidy, and went out. Miss Fellows was a great
novel reader. I was sure that she had read all Roy’s books. Fler dis-
approval of my casualness suggested that she had read them with ad-
miration. When I got home again, I found a note in her bold, legible
writing on the sideboard.
253
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Mr. Kear rang up twice. Can you lunch with him tomorrow? If not
what day will suit you ?
I raised my eyebrows. I had not seen Roy for three months and then
only for a lew minutes at a party; he had been very friendly — he al-
ways was — and when we separated he had expressed his hearty regret
that we met so seldom.
“London’s awful,” he said. “One never has time to see any of the
people one wants to. Let’s lunch together one day next week, shall
we?”
“I’d like to,” I replied.
“I’ll look at my book when I get home and ring you up.”
“All right.”
I had not known Roy for twenty years without learning that he al-
ways kept in the upper left-hand pocket of his waistcoat the little book
in which he put down his engagements; I was therefore not surprised
when I heard from him no further. It was impossible for me now to
persuade myself that this urgent desire of his to dispense hospitality
was disinterested. As I smoked a pipe before going to bed I turned over
in my mind the possible reasons for which Roy might want me to
lunch With him. It might be that an admirer of his had pestered him
to introduce me to her or that an American editor, in London for a
few days, had desired Roy to put me in touch with him; but I could
not do my old friend the injustice of supposing him so barren of de-
vices as not to be able to cope with such a situation. Besides, he told
me to choose my own day, so it could hardly be that he wished me to
meet anyone else.
Than Roy no one could show a more genuine cordiality to a fellow
novelist whose name was on everybody’s lips, but no one could more
genially turn a cold shoulder on him when idleness, failure, or some-
one else’s success had cast a shade on his notoriety. The writer has his
ups and downs, and I was but too conscious that at the moment I was
not in the public eye. It was obvious that I might have found excuses
without affront to refuse Roy’s invitation, though he was a determined
fellow and if he was resolved for purposes of his own to see me, I well
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CAKES AND ALE 255
knew that nothing short of a downright “go to hell” would check his
persistence; but I was beset by curiosity. I had also a considerable affec-
tion for Roy.
I had watched with admiration his rise in the world of letters. His
career might well have served as a model for any young man entering
upon the pursuit of literature. I could think of no one among my con-
temporaries who had achieved so considerable a position on so little
talent. This, like the wise man’s daily dose of Bemax, might have gone
into a heaped-up tablespoon. He was perfectly aware of it, and it must
have seemed to him sometimes little short of a miracle that he had
been able with it to compose already some thirty books. I cannot but
think that he saw the white light of revelation when first he read that
Charles Dickens in an after-dinner speech had stated that genius was
an infinite capacity for taking pains. He pondered the saying. If that
was all, he must have told himself, he could be a genius like the rest;
and when the excited reviewer of a lady’s paper, writing a notice of
one of his works, used the word (and of late the critics have been doing
it with agreeable frequency) he must have sighed with the satisfaction
of one who after long hours of toil has completed a cross-word puzzle.
No one who for years had observed his indefatigable industry could
deny that at all events he deserved to be a genius.
Roy started with certain advantages. He was the only son of a civil
servant who, after being Colonial Secretary for many years in Hong-
Kong, ended his career as Governor of Jamaica. When you looked up
Alroy Kear in the serried pages of Who’s Who you saw o.s. of Sir Ray-
mond Rear, K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O., q.v., and of Emily, y.d. of the late
Major General Percy Camperdown, Indian Army. He was educated at
Winchester and at New College, Oxford. He was president of the
Union and but for an unfortunate attack of measles might very well
have got his rowing blue. His academic career was respectable rather
than showy, and he left the university without a debt in the world.
Roy was even then of a thrifty habit, without any inclination to un-
profitable expense, and he was a good son. He knew that it had been
a sacrifice to his parents to give him so costly an education. His father,
having retired, lived in an unpretentious, but not mean, house near
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2 S 6 WOOLLCOTT’S second reader
Stroud in Gloucestershire, but at intervals went to London to attend
official dinners connected with the colonies he had administered, and
on these occasions was in the habit of visiting the Athenaeum, of which
he was a member. It was through an old crony at this club that he was
able to get his son, when he came down from Oxford, appointed pri-
vate secretary to a politician who, after having made a fool of himself
as Secretary of State in two Conservative administrations, had been re-
warded with a peerage. This gave Roy a chance to become acquainted
at an early age with the great world. He made good use of his oppor-
tunities. You will never find in his works any of the solecisms that dis-
figure the productions of those who have studied the upper circles of
society only in the pages of the illustrated papers. He knew exactly how
dukes spoke to one another, and the proper way they should be ad-
dressed respectively by a member of Parliament, an attorney, a book-
maker, and a valet. There is something captivating in the jauntiness
with which in his early novels he handles viceroys, ambassadors, prime
ministers, royalties, and great ladies. He is friendly without being pat-
ronizing and familiar without being impertinent. He does not let you
forget their rank, but shares with you his comfortable feeling that they
are of the same flesh as you and 1. 1 always think it a pity that, fashion
having decided that the doings of the aristocracy are no longer a
proper subject for serious fiction, Roy, always keenly sensitive to the
tendency of the age, should in his later novels have confined himself
to the spiritual conflicts of solicitors, chartered accountants, and produce
brokers. He does not move in these circles with his old assurance.
I knew him first soon after he resigned his secretaryship to devote
himself exclusively to literature, and he was then a fine, upstanding
young man, six feet high in his stockinged feet and of an athletic build,
with broad shoulders and a confident carriage. He was not handsome,
but in a manly way agreeable, to look at, with wide blue frank eyes and
curly hair of a lightish brown; his nose was rather short and broad, his
chin square. He looked honest, clean, and healthy. He was something
of an athlete. No one who has read in his early books the descriptions
of a run with the hounds, so vivid, and so accurate, can doubt that he
wrote from personal experience; and until quite lately he was willing
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now and then to desert his desk for a day’s hunting. He published his
first novel at the period when men of letters, to show their virility,
drank beer and played cricket, and for some years there was seldom a
literary eleven in which his name did not figure. This particular school,
I hardly know why, has lost its bravery, their books are neglected, and
cricketers though they have remained, they find difficulty in placing
their articles. Roy ceased playing cricket a good many years ago and
he has developed a fine taste for claret.
Roy was very modest about his first novel. It was short, neatly writ-
ten, and, as is everything he has produced since, in perfect taste. He
sent it with a pleasant letter to all the leading writers of the day, and in
this he told each one how greatly he admired his works, how much he
had learned from his study of them, and how ardently he aspired to
follow, albeit at a humble distance, the trail his correspondent had
blazed. He laid his book at the feet of a great artist as the tribute of a
young man entering upon the profession of letters to one whom he
would always look up to as his master. Deprecatingly, fully conscious
of his audacity in asking so busy a man to waste his time on a neo-
phyte’s puny effort, he begged for criticism and guidance. Few of the
replies were perfunctory. The authors he wrote to, flattered by his
praise, answered at length. They commended his book; many of them
asked him to luncheon. They could not fail to be charmed by his
frankness and warmed by his enthusiasm. He asked for their advice
with a humility that was touching and promised to act upon it with a
sincerity that was impressive. Here, they felt, was someone worth tak-
ing a little trouble over.
His novel had a considerable success. It made him many friends in
literary circles and in a very short while you could not go to a tea party
in Bloomsbury, Campden Hill, or Westminster without finding him
handing round bread and butter or disembarrassing an elderly lady of
an empty cup. He was so young, so bluff, so gay, he laughed so mer-
rily at other people’s jokes, that no one could help liking him. He
joined dining clubs where in the basement of a hotel in Victoria Street
or Holborn men of letters, young barristers, and ladies in Liberty silks
and strings of beads ate a three-and-sixpenny dinner and discussed
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258 W OOLLCOTT’S SECOND READER
art and literature. It was soon discovered that he had a pretty gift for
after-dinner speaking. He was so pleasant that his fellow writers, his
rivals and contemporaries, forgave him even the fact that he was a gen-
tleman. He was generous in his praise of their fledgeling works, and
when they sent him manuscripts to criticize could never find a thing
amiss. They thought him not only a good sort, but a sound judge.
He wrote a second novel. He took great pains with it and he profited
by the advice his elders in the craft had given him. It was only just that
more than one should at his request write a review for a paper with
whose editor Roy had got into touch and only natural that the review
should be flattering. His second novel was successful, but not so suc-
cessful as to arouse the umbrageous susceptibilities of his competitors.
In fact it confirmed them in their suspicions that he would never set
the Thames on fire. He was a jolly good fellow; no side, or anything
like that: they were quite content to give a leg up to a man who would
never climb so high as to be an obstacle to themselves. I know some
who smile bitterly now when they reflect on the mistake they made.
But when they say that he is swollen-headed they err. Roy has never
lost the modesty which in his youth was his most engaging trait.
“I know I’m not a great novelist,” he will tell you. “When I compare
myself with, the giants I simply don’t exist. I used to think that one
day I should write a really great novel, but I’ve long ceased even to
hope for that. All I want people to say is that I do my best. I do work.
I never let anything slipshod get past me. I think I can tell a good
story and I can create characters that ring true. And after all the proof
of the pudding is in the eating: The Eye of the Needle sold thirty-five
thousand in England and eighty thousand in America, and for the
serial rights of my next book I’ve got the biggest terms I’ve ever had
yet.”
And what, after all, can it be other than modesty that makes him
even now write to the reviewers of his books, thanking them for their
praise, and ask them to luncheon ? Nay, more : when someone has writ-
ten a stinging criticism and Roy, especially since his reputation became
so great, has had to put up with some very virulent abuse, he does not,
like most of us, shrug his shoulders, fling a mental insult at the ruffian
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who does not like our work, and then forget about it; he writes a long
letter to his critic, telling him that he is very sorry he thought his book
bad, but his review was so interesting in itself, and, if he might venture
to say so, showed so much critical sense and so much feeling for words,
that he felt bound to write to him. No one is more anxious to improve
himself than he and he hopes he is still capable of learning. He does
not want to be a bore, but if the critic has nothing to do on Wednesday
or Friday will he come and lunch at the Savoy and tell him why ex-
actly he thought his book so bad ? No one can order a lunch better than
Roy, and generally by the time the critic has eaten half a dozen oysters
and a cut from a saddle of baby lamb, he has eaten his words too. It is
only poetic justice that when Roy’s next novel comes out the critic
should see in the new work a very great advance.
One of the difficulties that a man has to cope with as he goes through
life is what to do about the persons with whom he has once been inti-
mate and whose interest for him has in due course subsided. If both
parties remain in a modest station the break comes about naturally,
and no ill feeling subsists, but if one of them achieves eminence the
position is awkward. He makes a multitude of new friends, but the
old ones are inexorable; he has a thousand claims on his time, but they
feel that they have the first right to it. Unless he is at their beck and
call they sigh and with a shrug of the shoulders say:
“Ah, well, I suppose you’re like everyone else. I must expect to be
dropped now that you’re a success.”
That of course is what he would like to do if he had the courage.
For the most part he hasn’t. He weakly accepts an invitation to supper
on Sunday evening. The cold roast beef is frozen and comes from Aus-
tralia and was over-cooked at middle day; and the burgundy — ah, why
will they call it burgundy ? Have they never been to Beaune and stayed
at the Hotel de la Poste ? Of course it is grand to talk of the good old
days when you shared a crust of bread in a garret together, but it is a
little disconcerting when you reflect how near to a garret is the -room
you are sitting in. You feel ill at ease when your friend tells you that
his books don’t sell and that he can’t place his short stories; the man-
agers won’t even read his plays, and when he compares them with
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260 WOOLLCOTT’S SECOND READER
some of the stuff that’s put on (here he fixes you with an accusing eye)
it really does seem a bit hard. You are embarrassed and you look away.
You exaggerate the failures you have had in order that he may realize
that life has its hardships for you too. You refer to your work in the
most disparaging way you can and are a trifle taken aback to find that
your host’s opinion of it is the same as yours. You speak of the fickle-
ness of the public so that he may comfort himself by thinking that your
popularity cannot last. He is a friendly but severe critic.
“I haven’t read your last book,” he says, “but I read the one before.
I’ve forgotten its name.”
You tell him.
“I was rather disappointed in it. I didn’t think it was quite so good
as some of the things you’ve done. Of course you know which my fa-
vourite is.”
And you, having suffered from other hands than his, answer at once
with the name of the first book you ever wrote; you were twenty then,
and it was crude and ingenuous, and on every page was written your
inexperience.
“You’ll never do anything so good as that,” he says heartily, and you
feel that your whole career has been a long decadence from that one
happy hit. “I always think you’ve never quite fulfilled the promise you
showed then.”
The gas fire roasts your feet, but your hands are icy. You look at
your wrist watch surreptitiously and wonder whether your old friend
would think it offensive if you took your leave as early as ten. You
have told your car to wait round the corner so that it should not stand
outside the door and by its magnificence affront his poverty, but at the
door he says:
“You’ll find a bus at the bottom of the street. I’ll just walk down
with you.”
Panic seizes you and you confess that you have a car. He finds it
very odd that the chauffeur should wait round the corner. You answer
that this is one of his idiosyncrasies. When you reach it your friend
looks at it with tolerant superiority. You nervously ask him to dinner
with you one day. You promise to write to him and you drive away
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26 i