Follow M' Leader

by SIR OSBERT SITWELL

AN overwhelming homesickness continually assailed me, when at the beginning of the war I was amongst those civil servants exiled — evacuated may be a newer, though hardly a prettier, word — from London to a small provincial town in Wales. Alas, in this banishment, my weaknesses began at once to show themselves, and, being over sixty, I was too old to attempt their remedy. Struggles of the modern sort horrify but do not interest me. I hate noise and my mind clings obstinately to those little things, which, as the weeks passed, were of less and less account, but that yet in their sum total constitute civilization. Incidents of everyday life in great cities amuse me, to whom one aircraft shooting another down signified nothing, not even a passing excitement. I longed, even, for that office which formerly I had regarded as consuming my days; but, above all, for the secondhand bookshops of the Charing Cross Road, the comfortable glow behind their windows, and that warm, dusty breath of books which is my peculiar delight. In remembrance of them, it became my habit to visit in Abercovey during the luncheon hour the two or three stalls and counters devoted to broken furniture, torn magazines, and a few moldy volumes; tales of the enterprise of missionaries or novelettes of High Life in the seventies and eighties. And, among these, I picked out one day a faded book, which, as I handled it, touched far back in my mind some hidden, elusive association.

For an instant I could not place the identity of the author. Full Fathom Five! by Weldwyn. FlyteFoller. Then, turning to the flyleaf, I read an inscription, written in faded violet ink:—

To Montgomery Hazen Chaffers

Weldwyn Flyte-Foller.

Oct. 7. ‘99.

Of course!

How had it been possible for me to forget “The Two Crusaders of English Literature,” as Henley called them, “The Romulus and Remus of our New Rome,” as Gosse had described them, or “The Spearhead of our English Advance-Guard,” in the phrase that a cultured General had applied to them at a prize-giving? Great names in their own time, names with the promise of thunder, names that had rolled sweetly on the dry tongues of critics, Montgomery Hazen Chaffers and Weldwyn Flyte-Foller! Their bearers, I recalled, had been permitted to sit. under the shadow of that domelike forehead in Lamb House, the lion’s den. Of them, the Master had pronounced that they were “two young authors who, without any desire for their undue precipitation, combine a certain feeling for the texture of words and the texture, still more, of the thought that lies behind them, with a true gift, and a comprehension of the, as it were, underlying hesitancy and ambiguity of all things.” Names once flung passionately to the four winds by the trumpets of the Muses, but now forgotten. And, under them, lurked the shadow of a third, unacclaimed, unrecognized, and but seldom spoken in his own time.

Copyright 1952 by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston 16, Mass. All rights reserved.

Flyte-Foller and Chaffers had, it is true, been long forgotten. But it was not possible to allege this much of Owen Footmouse. “Forgotten, yet not forgotten, because never remembered,” I intoned to myself, as I put the book back in its place on the shelf between Cricket Averages for 1908 and Pilkington of Uganda. I, too, had let the memory of him drift away; because I had not at the time been able to endure to think — without writing it — of the curious, fantastic history, malign enough in its way, of poor Owen. In those days the narrative would, I fear, have made for general discomfort in critical and literary cricles; but now, with that whole world so distant, and myself banished from the city I love, I will try to set down this strange tale of vanished splendors.

2

THE three friends, Weldwyn Flyte-Foller, Montgomery Hazen Chaffers, and Owen Footmouse, left the University in the mid-nineties, in the hope — as many have hoped before and after them — of making a name for themselves in literature. At Oxford they had already constituted a trio to whom, it was supposed by fervent brother undergraduates, the future was securely in pledge; and so, since at that lime I also had wanted to be a writer, I watched with attention the spectacular ascent of two of them and the dull decline of the third.

No men could have differed more greatly one from another in character and appearance than these three men. Flyte-Foller was the most positive, a boisterous, short, rubicund buccaneer, flamboyant and lively, fitted out, as it might have been, by Merger himself, for the Golden Age of the Café Royal, with a falling lock of hair, and a cloak and hat borrowed from a provincial performance of Carmen. His rich, jolly laugh, his expression, which conveyed contemptuous but full-blooded scorn, became the things most typical of him, and, in spite of his costume, he personified the reaction from the aesthetic nineties of Wilde and Beardsley toward the newer Boer War ideals of chivalry and manliness.

Montgomery Chaffers, on the other hand, in spite of his ailing and dyspeptic expression, in spite of the high, square shoulders and sharp features of a hunchback manqué, manifested a certain elegance of mien. On his tall, long-waisted figure, clothes looked their best, and, even when their owner was still poor, they manifested a personal style, while, in addition, an eyeglass fluttered in front of him on a broad black ribbon. The very use of the Christian name Montgomery was at that time an aid to a career, had not sunk, as now, to seeming mere wreckage of the literary tides. Then choice and somewhat elfin, it contributed to the building of his throne as whimsey-king. The quaintness of his life, no less than of his name and writing, delighted the growing number of bis admirers; as did his bell-like laugh, which struck, in the same way that Baedeker asterisks a cathedral, so many chimes to denote the importance of any joke he made. Nor can it be denied that, backed by a considerable amount of malice, he possessed wit though not enough, unfortunately, to suffice for the work he called upon it to do.

Third and last — always last—came Owen Footmouse, giving an impression of fatr-complexioned youthfulness and weak amiability. Unfortunately, his puny physique ever carried with it a hint of the ridiculous; in a manner in which no writer can afford to be ridiculous. Young and birdlike, he exhibited in his face all the symptoms of extreme good health, as well as of good nature. His eyes shone with eagerness. No originality, you would have said, in his whole composition. Yet undoubtedly it had been Owen’s morbid taste that had designed Flyte-Foller, had counseled here a stock tie, there a ring, and the final pose of robust merriment, even as it had, too, produced and presented Chaffers, in toto, down to his furthest and most winsome conceits, and to the very semblance of morbidity he imparted.

When Owen Footmouse left Oxford and came to live in London, he spent each Sunday in going for long tramps with his two friends. They would walk as far as Richmond, Twickenham, or Kingston: or sometimes they would take a train to some village just under the downs, and, climbing to those tablelands, would there devote a Saxon day to beer, cheese, and in Owen’s case — to sore — oh, such sore — feet! For alas, though he would never give up, he did not, he could not, walk as heartily as they. He was inclined to fall out, to drag behind, to sit down by the way, nor did they feel it incumbent upon them to wait for him

As so it was in life also. Soon they had left him, their unseen hack and producer, far behind in the suburbs, while they were already princes in Chelsea and Mayfair. With an easy and unpredictable rapidity, they achieved first literary and then — in addition, and without losing the first —popular success. Round them, high up in the heaven above, flowered the compliments of the elect, like rockets breaking into golden blossom: “a new note, sustained, lyrical and virile,” “a renewal of ultimate values,” “Macaulay for appraisement, and Keats for sound,”“unquestionable authenticity and integrity”; but on Footmouse, their creator, fell only the sticks. The ideal middleman of literature, his name was never mentioned, and, if it had been, would have aroused no interest, no storm of inquiry. Poor Owen, not for him was the leonine roar of Frank Harris, Colvin’s praises, or Gosse’s Sunday-afternoon cake; not on him was the gaze of all eyes directed as he entered the room — he could not even enter it, for he was not invited. Yet he* seemed in no way to resent his own eclipse or the starry scrambling of t he I wain.

The reader of today, in his ignorance, may at this point inquire what particular qualities made the work of Flyte-Foller and Montgomery Chaffers seem immortal to their hour; why, in fact, did it make such a noise? Perhaps because they gave the critics that particular meal for winch they were looking at that particular time, “Buns"—as it might be — the critics had been demanding hoarsely over a considerable period, and when these two young men, instructed by Footmouse, dexterously shied just the right buns into eager, gaping mouths, the recipients paused only to swallow them, and then roared and barked back their applause and anticipation of similar favors to come. This clamor, in its turn, imposed these two new authors upon the popes of the literary world, who, since their own position was due to an earlier outcry of the same order, could not afford to allow that critics might be undisceruing or mistaken.

Now what the critics had lately been seeking for their pabulum was a lack of self-consciousness together with an Elizabethan prolificacy and gusto, and an affectation of quaintness, not too underdone. Flyte-Foller supplied the first, with rollicking, if tragic, poetic dramas, sonorous but empty, for all their crowds of noblemen, jesters, cardinals, and English kings. He was “the revival, personified, of the great tradition of English Poetic Drama": playafter play rolled out for hours its “thous” and “shouldsts and “wouldsts" and “halidoms,”until the blank verse, footsore from scene after scene, at last limped toward the infirm infinity of its third act.

Montgomery Chaffers, on the other hand, gave the critics their second course. “The Elia of the day,’ he danced his dainty trifles, his quaint and humorous conceits, lightsome and toothsome and winsome as thistledown, before the dazzled eyes of press and public. His novels were almost more in demand than his essays, and the special proprietary brand of near-Catholicism they exhibited flurried the evening hush of many a close.

Different as were the talents of the two men, the race their names ran in the columns of the newspapers was neck and neck. Neither of them, it seemed, Could pass the other. Katherine Parr, the student of form might have thought, would outpace Mirabile Dictu, The Tigress of Aquitaine prove faster than Little Mr. Noel; a Historiette of Christmastide, or Dickon Cæur-de-Lion have romped past Mr. Tiddlums in The Tower. But no; though foam flecked the riders, they remained nose by nose, eye by eye, in, as it appeared, immutable equality.

Hitherto the playwright had melted the more money; but fresh developments soon added a new bitterness to the inevitable jealousy now existing between them. Flyte-Foller stepped into the arena of the novel-reading public with Heart-beats in Haze and Doublet; A Romance of Tudor Days; to which Montgomery Chaffers replied with The Black Swan of Tuscany; a poetic drama of old Florence. Beerbohm Tree — as he then was — put on this play at His Majesty’s, himself doubling the parts of the Cardinal-Grand-Duke and the blind Hunchback. Its lavish mounting, and the wonderful vistas it disclosed of Renaissance life in Italy (Dante, Michelangelo, Savonarola, Leonardo, Giotto, Beatrice, Boccaccio, Laura, Petrarch, Galileo, and a hundred others, in fine defiance of Time’s arbitrary laws, all made their appearance on the stage together), no less than the assassination scene by moonlight on the Ponte Vecchio, helped to obtain for it a great vogue. Worse still, in order to produce it, Tree had been obliged to refuse Flyte-Foller’s new drama, She-Wolf of Navarre.

On the other side of the ledger, Chaffers was displeased to find that the sale of Heart-beats in Hoze and Doublet had exceeded that of any two of his previous books together, though it was plain to him — and, he would have thought, to anyone — that Flyte-Foller was by nature no novelist. He lacked all fantaisie and espièglerie. (Chaffers could never bear to pronounce an English word where several French ones would serve the same purpose.) “The fellow can’t write plays,” Flyte-Foller confided to Owen. “He is not forthright; he has no robustness.”

Nevertheless, both authors were triumphantly successful. Though the press wrote of The Black Swan of Tuscany, “The quaintness, ihe diablerie, is of a higher order than that with which his fellowcraftsman, Flyte-Foller, has made us acquainted,” and of Heart-beats in Haze and Doublet, “Here is a trenchant reality lacking in the work of his brothernovelist, Montgomery Chaffers,” yet what more could be said of each than to compare him, favorably or unfavorably, with the other? Would the race never be run ?

3

ILL-FEELING increased. Those long, lovely Sunday rounds of beer and cheese, and wind-on-the-heath-brother, became things of a remote and kindly past. Chaffers and Flyte-Foller met now never of their own choice. And seldom by accident, for the literary hostesses of that day were careful not to invite the rivals at the same time to the same house.

Poor Owen, gone were his outings! No longer could he preen himself within the nimbus of the dual glory. Each great man had forbidden in his presence the very mention of the other’s name. Not withstanding, he continued faithful to them both in his own fashion.

Matrimony further envenomed their new hatred: since, as it chanced, they were married on the same day; with the consequence that each obtained only half of the half column in the press which, under other circumstances, would have been consecrated to him alone. Besides, they separately, but in identical terms, complained to Owen, it cheapened the whole institution. (Owen, in order to maintain a balance, felt himself obliged to attend the marriage of one, and the bridal reception of the other.) Their wives, too, took on, with the weddings, their share of the growing feud. Fortunately they differed considerably in their appearance: Phoebe Flyte-Foller was tall, dark, and mournful, with long earrings a-dangle from sad ears, while Violet Chaffers was short, golden-haired, a gay vivandière, with the foam of Roedean still clinging to her hockey stick; yet the very first time they saw each other — at a large evening party — they were dressed alike!

One thing alone the two women shared in reality, a common distrust of Owen.

“Darling,” each would ask unsuspectingly of her husband, “why must you always ask that dowdy, dreary little man to tea? You know the Hubbard-Hockings don’t like him. They told me so. They met him somewhere the other day at some author’s they said, but they couldn’t remember where. And I’m sure it’s a mistake to let someone like that call you by your Christian name. It s hardly fair on me. You must remember your position now. You are far too kind. It doesn’t pay.”

Flyte-Foller and Chaffers would separately, and within limits, defend him.

“He’s useful to me, darling. Besides, there’s a good deal there, if you get to know him. The pity is, he has no originality, no pith, no fire!”

For him a pity perhaps, but it was their great good fortune. In sleeping hours he may have dreamed of making a name for himself, but his waking hours were spent in making their names. He evinced a decided talent for the sort of work he accomplished for them: planning whole books, inventing names of places and characters, finding the answers to questions of history, grammar, and versification, and assigning interviews and sending out little personal paragraphs to papers before the issue of a new book. Further, he made the general business arrangements with editors and publishers. In addition, it was expected of him to type the whole of each manuscript, while, if he made a mistake, his masters did not scruple to tell him of it. FlyteFoller roared at him, Chaffers minced, winced, and riddled him with poisoned shafts.

His tasks left him with little leisure. Yet, as the years went by, he seemed quite happy. Notwithstanding his lack of success, his innocent days, so quickly, because so industriously, passed, were pleasant to him. He liked the British Museum Reading Room, which devoured his life; he enjoyed making notes and outlining ingenious schemes for the advancement of his two friends. Perhaps his very abandonment of all hope of fame for himself meant that life was less of a strain for him, for by this time he was aware that he possessed no power of creation — or, at most, only became creative when he was helping others. But, though he appeared to ask so little of life and to receive still less

— a word of commendation, a glance of assumed gratitude, enough money for food, fire, and clothing

— he was content. Worries scarcely existed for him, and he was happy, too, with lesser friends.

Gradually he had developed a lower circle of acquaintance, shy businessmen of no great standing, journalists, writers and actors of little consequence but with plenty of time on their hands; and these were seasoned by a few old friends from Oxford. Held in the greatest esteem, “Mousey,” “Old Mousey,” was to them bathed in the glory of his two supreme friendships; they realized that his familiarity with themselves was of a different and less exalted order. In their company he spent the moments of leisure spared him from his constructive work. And these moments were comparatively few.

Nor, of course, did he possess the stamina required to accomplish the work of three people; why, even laboring thus for two in the course of years overtaxed his strength. He began to look worn, now that his hair was thinner. The rimless spectacles he had lately adopted dimmed his air of youthful enthusiasm without in any way removing that unfortunate quality, attaching to it in the first place, of being a little ridiculous. His cheeks were perpetually flushed; phthisical, poor fellow, I supposed. How very good-natured of him thus to wear himself out for others — I comprehended a little what his work must be— and yet to bear the world no rancor for the little money, the less credit, that he earned. And then, suddenly, he would laugh, and that odd, long, wheezing, hacking cachinnation would make me regard him again more closely, and wonder whether after all, just as his appearance of good health was deceptive, so under this benignly absurd exterior, signs of other feelings did not exist, a puckering and growing sharpness round the eyes, a hardening of the lines round the mouth; whether, indeed, ludicrous as it would appear to one who had not noticed the developing of character in his face over a period of years, there might not be, beneath the overlay of kindness, a suspicion of the warning livery of the wasp?

No doubt it was only my fancy, for he remained unshakably loyal to his two famous friends. They constituted his whole motive for existence. Just think for a moment of how much he did for them! That anonymous Homage to Chaffers, which at the time created such a sensation, received rapturous praise, surmised to have been composed by some famous writer of the elder generation (Meredith, George Meredith himself, men whispered), or that review of Flyte-Foller’s first play, which placed him as a great dramatist; both were Owen Footmouse’s. So were the quotations continually reproduced in publishers’ circulars and advertisements, such as “Every two hundred and fifty years a poet of a broad humanity that transcends mere genius and seems the very stuff of life arises in this little island. . . . Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Flyte-Foller, so the tradition marches from age to age.” That, even that, was the work of this humble, unrewarded ghost.

Yet it was impossible to dismiss him with a phrase of this kind. After all, he was a creator, and must have been conscious of the fact. Was it, then, his pride in f hose two creations of his, the living master-pieces of his rare trade, that enabled him still to respect them, to be fond of them?

4

ROLLED by the years, bringing to the two rivals a continual augmentation of their fame, increased riches and position. Both, though still young for such a dignity, were knighted in the same breathtaking list of honors; both received on the same day —we are now nearing the luxurious Edwardian sunset — the accolade. But their mutual hatred had deepened in spite of their joint advancement. If the new Sir Montgomery Chaffers heard fall the mere syllables “Sir Weldwyn Flyte-Foller,”he winced in public; while if the ears of the new Sir Weldwyn received the musical lilt of “Sir Montgomery Chaffers,” he bellowed forth his anathemas.

Still with every month their mutual detestation grew. Nor, perhaps, was the position in this respect much improved by “Max,” who exhibited two caricatures of them: one which represented them as two doves cooing together upon a single branch, the other — and more striking -as two marionettes attired in court dress, the strings worked by the hands of the same invisible showman. The crowd at the private view looked at this last, and wondered; what could “Max" mean? The protagonists were obliged to pretend to admire the drawings and enjoy their humor, even to make some halfhearted inquiries concerning their price. What else could they do? Moreover the humbly submissive Footmouse would have permitted them no other course (he still worked for both of them, their only link).

Certainly Sir Weldwyn and Sir Montgomery lent themselves, as great men should, to the art of caricature, struck their own notes, respectively flamboyant and elegant. Flyte-Foller, with the years more rubicund, more convex in ihe curves of face and figure, his hair still rolling in fat curls toward his collar, combined the air of bandit with that of overgrown Bohemian schoolboy, and continued to wear his cloak and hat. (His court suit at Buckingham Palace had been, of course, all that it should have been: Footmouse had seen to that, had even attended the fittings at the tailor’s shop.) Sir Montgomery, too, had been wise enough, or well-enough advised, to emphasize his type, that of the menger, wizened, high-shouldered Rowlandson exquisite. His clothes were of the best cloth and cut, and the ribbon of his eyeglass was ironed every morning.

Though the days of both were full, each took endless pains to avoid catching even a glimpse of the other. If, for example, either of them were going to visit a gallery on the opening day of an exhibition, his wife would first telephone to the directors to find out whether his rival was already there, or shortly to be expected. For Lady Flyle-Foller and Lady Chaffers, like their husbands, still rode neck and neck, but, if it were possible, with more acerbity in heart and on tongue. They continually goaded their husbands to fresh action, persuading them to abuse and cut the enemy, and, worse still, to despise and humiliate Owen Footmouse, their friend.

Between Sir Montgomery and Sir Weldwyn an occasional collision was indeed inevitable. For example, both of them were asked to speak at a gathering at the Mansion House on behalf of a fund that was to be raised for the survivors of the Messina earthquake; neither, when he thought of charily no less than of his sales, could find it in his heart to refuse. Thus they met on the same platform. Fortunately, not even fate could contrive for them to speak together, but it did arrange for an alderman to deliver an impromptu eulogy of the two authors, ending “their nimes will go down to litterrarristory, linked together and h’undissolved like Castro and Pollock, or Divid and Jonathan.”

Sir Weldwyn Flyle-Foller rose to speak first, making no mention of his fellow crusader of other days, except at the beginning of his oration to pronounce, “The coupling of my name with that of Sir Montgomery Chaffers is an honor to which I do not aspire. My ambition is not so vaulting. I keep to my own paths, and must rely on my own individual efforts. (At this point, I heard a nervous, tickling cough just behind me, and there I saw Footmouse, anonymous in the vast audience.)

When Sir Weldwyn had at last finished, Sir Montgomery stood up and made a graceful little speech, its whimsies just touched with vitriol. He ended, “And now, in conclusion, I must say a word about my Heavenly Twin, Sir Weldwyn (may his shadow never grow less!). It is, to me at any rate, a peculiar pleasure to see him here, and so realize that he still survives to cheer with his stirring dramas the humble of heart. Let me put it another way: do not allow yourselves, I pray you, to dismiss as negligible even an audience composed of handmaidens. Like the rest of us, each melancholy drudge among the dust and dirt boasts a soul, and to that poor, struggling soul — so often overcome by the worries of Everyday — Sir Weldwyn Flyte-Foller gives invaluable release.’‘

Meanwhile, with flushed faces and angry manner, Sir weldwyn and Lady Flyte-Foller were sweeping their way from the platform. A few days later occurred an altogether more serious event.

5

THOUGH everyone in any world connected with literature knew of the feud between the two famous authors, Mrs. Kinfoot, at that time new to the ropes and ladders of her precarious profession as celebrity-hostess, uncertain as yet in her feats of equipoise, one night brought them face to face in her drawing room. It had been a very hot and tiring July day, and to many of those assembled, it seemed as if the two great men almost welcomed this opportunity of rivaling the thunder. They made it plain from the start that this was a meeting between Monarehs of the Jungle, an encounter memorable as it would be vehement. Flyte-Foller roared, Chaffers spat fire. The malignity and impetus of their mutual attack surprised me, prepared though I had been for a clash. Thus at last, in public, the two inseparable friends of fifteen years before came to the verge of blows, while their wives alternately egged them on and then, feeling that they had gone too far, tried to curb them.

From the two men at least, I would have expected more restraint. After all, they were no mere tyros. But they would not desist, were injudicious in the extreme. While we spectators stood fascinated, holding the ring, Chaffers, whom rage seemed to have shrunk and made pale, just as the same emotion had swollen and incarnadined the countenance of his rival, began to taunt Flyte-Foller with various details of his origin; details which could only have become known to him through their former terms of confidence. Worse, he dared to make open reference to the part played by “that little rat, footmouse” in Sir Weldwyn’s successful career — completely omitting, of course, to mention those benefits which himself owed to the same passionate and disinterested labor. In reply Sir Weldwyn, instead of seeking to defend poor Owen, contented himself with shouting back. “The little sneak works for you, not for me. Everything you’ve written, he has deviled for you. I wouldn’t accept help from him, if he went down on his hands and knees to me! Undignified and abusive, they were now separated; but not before I had seen near me a face which made my heart stand still.

Owen was perpetually overworked, he always felt tired and often ill, his clothes were shabby and his friends for the most part poor. But, as it happened, Kinfoot, an amiable if dull fellow, and old acquaintance of his from Oxford days, was a member of “Mousey’s” circle. Therefore, though he so rarely went out into the world, yet by one of those inconsistencies that go to make up the characters of all of us, Owen had been looking forward to this party for the whole summer past. Nor had he been aware that either of his masters was to be present, for Kinfoot never talked of them and probably did not know his wife had asked them.

Alas! their slave stood opposite me at the very ringside when the encounter took place, though neither of the principals, nor their wives, caught in this blind whirlwind of their hatred, noticed him lurking there so unobtrusively. But I had unwillingly to watch him being tortured, myself unable to help, for pity had momentarily paralyzed my limbs and vocal cords. I tried to follow him out of the room, but it was too late.

When next we met, time had gone by, and I was careful to awake no memory of a so painful occasion.

So far as I could make out afterwards, he had gone to see Flyte-Foller a day or two later, taking with him the various historical details he had been commanded to collect for a new play. In the course of this visit, he had ventured to touch on the subject of the now celebrated quarrel. Yes, he had been present, he admitted, and had been shocked, deeply shocked, at the behavior of Chaffers. It had been a dreadful spectacle. He had not before fully realized how much the man had degenerated. The fashion in which he had talked, no less than the way in which he had revealed things made known to him under the seal of friendship, was low, ill-bred, unworthy even of a tenth-rate author; to which rank, evidently — or he could not; have spoken in that manner — he had sunk. Sir Weldwyn, he urged, could scarcely allow such an incident to pass, must strike at once and forever.

The plan Owen unfolded was simple. He knew, he said, that he did not possess the originality of mind which had brought his master so many immortal triumphs: he had nevertheless conceived a remarkable plot for a book; an idea so individual and distinctive that he had intended to keep it, so as to try to make with it a name for himself. (Sir Weldwyn said nothing, but secretly was astonished at the man’s audacity and impudence: “try to make a name for myself,” indeed!) He was diffident, however, after all, of his powers (not unnaturally, Sir Weldwyn reflected: that was better!). But a great writer, a Flyte-Foller, could take up the theme and work it into a masterpiece. It took the form of a modern, satirical novel — unlike, it was true, anything he had so far written, but brilliant and just in the taste of the moment. Readers — wretched, unthinking, perfidious creatures that they were — had begun to weary of grand historical dramas (did Sir Weldwyn remember—though it was a shame to pay even momentary attention to such stuff—that peculiarly horrid review of Man of Agincourt in the Daily Spectacle of April last? Such a nasty tone to it!), to tire of psychological interest, too. They demanded Something New.

“It’s not asking so much,”Owen pleaded, “to implore you to use your powers. If only you will work at the plot I give you, if only you will drop your new historical drama, and instead concentrate on this book, you’ll place your powers once and for all above comparison with those of Chaffers. Henceforth, there can be no question, no dispute. The answer will be writ in stone.” Here he laughed, a defiant condemnatory cackle, loud and long.

Flyte-Foller allowed himself to be persuaded, and threw himself into the scheme with a kind of frenzy. Emotional, vigorous in a flabby, hysterical kind of way, capable of great bouts of work, he spared himself so little, labored so unremittingly, that Owen — now promoted, allowed to make such friendly remonstrances and generally to be much more familiar than in the past few years — chid him for neglecting his health. They must take a day off once a week, and go into the country for an outing of a Sunday, as they used to do, he urged.

“Your life is too precious, old man” (yes, even thus far he dared in these days to go!); “much too precious to risk through continual, silly overwork. After all, you’re a national asset.”

“I can’t help it, Owen. It’s m’ nature. Perhaps it is that which made me. M’ work: always m’work must come first.”

“But you must think of others: we all, the whole nation, need many more books from your pen. And country walks are what, with your artist’s temperament, you require. Dr. Fresh Air will soon put you to rights.”

As a matter of fact, it was obvious that however greatly fresh air might help Sir Weldwyn, overexposure to it would soon kill Footmouse. He began to look dreadfully ill. But the great man neglected this aspect of the matter. It afforded the poor creature gratification to go out with him, he thought, and he had begun to entert ain a new and very kindly feeling for his slave. Even Lady Flyte-Foller, when informed of his attitude, so manly and so plainly right, had warmed to him, giving him every now and then a wry and rueful smile, or letting her earrings swing free over him, while she towered above like a pagoda, and shook hands. She had begun to “see something in him,” she confessed to her husband. Of course, you could not, alas!, expect everyone to like him. But herself quite appreciated his “point.”She loved that funny laugh; so goodnatured !

6

THE winter came. With a really remarkable perversity and with, for such a mild being, a singular perseverance, Owen insisted on continuing these excursions, even — sometimes, it seemed especially — when the weather was bad.

Odd, haunted expeditions they must have been, too, past blocks of flats that had been light-leafed groves by the river fifteen years before, through lines of bungalows where formerly had been open downs. How very much Richmond and Kingston had altered, how changed were Uckfield and Cuckfield and Birling Gap from those rural retreats of old days! And at times, too, it may have seemed to Sir Weldwyn as though a third figure were accompanying them during these walks that, with a sense of repetition, yet presented a nightmarish modification of former well-known scenes; a highshouldered, long-legged, elegant figure, a good companion full of gay whimsies and quaint conceits. Particularly may this ghost have appeared to him when he was a little feverish — for, on several occasions, the friends came back drenched and running with rain, their teeth chattering, from expeditions that had lasted a whole day.

“My dear Lady Flyte-Foller,” Owen would apologize, “I’m afraid it was my fault: but how can one tell? I’ve never known such an extraordinary winter. But it won’t have harmed Weldwyn, I’m sure. Fresh air never hurts a man of genius, so finely organized and sensitive as he is, an artist, to his fingers’ tips. It takes him away from his study for a few hours, and that’s the main thing. As for me, I don’t matter!” And so Owen would be forgiven.

“You ought to take more care of yourself, all the same,” Lady Flyte-Foller would reply. ”Sympathy Means Such a Lot in Life” she would add vaguely; “but now you must hurry home, I know, and change and have a cup of nice hot tea.” She was expecting some distinguished friends.

After such outings, however, the robust Sir Weldwyn often fell ill of colds and influenzas, whereas the delicate Footmouse suffered not at all. On several occasions the great man was laid up for a week or two. And his slave was so contrite: “kindness itself,” Lady Flyte-Foller used to lisp. Nothing, she thought, could be more touching than the devotion he showed: nothing. Not only did he take turns with her, when necessary, in nursing the invalid, but, because “the Boke” (as they both call it), must not fall behindhand, he insisted on finishing, and beginning, new chapters of it himself.

“On no account must it be late,” he stressed to Sir Weldwyn, “because the publishers have stipulated for a particular day of publication. They want to get the Christmas sales. You’ve never let them down yet, and it won’t do to disappoint them now. The new terms are gratifying in the extreme.

“Besides,” he used to add, “it needn’t worry you that, when you’re ill, a literary dwarf like I am is permitted to add a little here, a little there. Your genius is so powerful that, whether I want to or not, I soon find myself writing in something that resembles, however inadequately, your style. Later on when you’re stronger, by all means put in your own inimitable touches. Only let the wings of your genius brush the page, however lightly, and it will become unmistakably yours.”

There would be no harm in it, Sir Weldwyn thought to himself. Somehow, he felt too ill and exhausted to pen even half a page today. Yes. He would revise it later. Let the little fellow just prepare the groundwork. (Nearly off again — and he had been sleeping very badly for the last few nights.) Main great painters were said to have employed lesser men to help them with the preliminaries of their most celebrated canvases — fill in the background, don’t you know. No doubt, his having allowed the little chap to see so much of him lalely had imbued the little fellow with something of the true spirit. And, as a matter of fact, when, after these various short periods of illness, Sir Weldwyn came to see what had been written, he thought it quite good, containing an unexpected fire.

7

AS SOON as Sir Weldwyn was better, Owen would once more persuade him to go for another of these tramps. “They’re just what a convalescent of your vigorous constitution needs,”he would coax, “to throw off the aftereffects of being so long shut, up in the house. Your whole being demands fresh air. It’s what you stand for.”

The great man would let himself be convinced and would decide to go. “Well, after all,”Lady Flyte-Foller would say to herself, “the winter is nearly over, and this time Weldwyn is sure to be more careful. He’s learned his lesson. Besides, that, little man has proved himself a real brick, and it gives him such pleasure!”

Of course, another illness would be the result. Owen would again nurse him, again touch in the groundwork of “the Boke.”Yet, Sir Weldwyn, notwithstanding the help he received, feared that its appearance might be delayed: for that winter and spring he was such an invalid. Luckily, he reflected, as, wrapped in a dressing-gown, he read the Times during his convalescence after one of these recurrent attacks, Chaffers seemed to be no better off. Always ill now — and announcing the fact himself in the paper, as if it could interest anyone! No doubt put in by that silly wife of his, with her hockey-ground-glass smile, and her long-jump handshake! He’d seen her the other day — but best forget about that, put it right out of his mind, or it might affect his nerves and thus hinder his recovery. Judging from the Times, Chaffers seemed always to fall ill just as he, Sir Weldwyn, was getting better.

What a dear, affectionate old fellow Owen was, he meditated. And he began to reproach himself for not having seen so much of him in the immediate past — but Chaffers was to blame again! It was entirely his fault. Never mind: that account would be settled soon! Due to appear late in November. And, in spite of what Owen had — he searched for the word — well, not written, but “done,” the book seemed to pull together and stand on its own feet. Although so new, so different from his other novels, a reader opening it anywhere at random would know at once, he thought, who had written it. And if was surprising, when you came to think of it, how little he had been obliged to alter.

Dear old fellow, he must often try and help him like this in the future. Such a lot in him, when you got to know him; dependable, in his own way, a bit on the sensitive side, perhaps. For instance, think how he was always going down to a remote part of the country, disappearing for days at a time, in order to look after a wealthy relative: an aunt; another invalid. (He showed, obviously, a natural talent for nursing the sick, and must enjoy it, Sir Weldwyn thought to himself.) A week or two ago, apparently he had thought she was sinking, but she had rallied. Yet Sir Weldwyn, when I went to see him one day, told me that in all the years that he had known the dear old chap, never had Owen so much as mentioned her until now —or that she possessed money.

“He has prospects from her, it appears, and we can’t help feeling a little hart,” Lady Flyte-Foller interrupted, “at having been kept in the dark like that all this time. It would have made him such a much more interesting little person all along, if we had only known! And it would have helped our friends, too, to understand him.”

“All the same,” Sir Weldwyn said, “he’s ‘come on’ a lot lately, and if only his aunt will die and leave him her fortune, it should bring him out still further. Success in his schemes is what he needs.”

From these short absences in the country which Sir Weldwyn had mentioned to me, Owen used to return with a jaunty step, but with in his eye a curious, febrile glitter. Indeed, when next I saw him, the visible difference in his appearance worried me. A spot of color flamed high on each cheek, his lips were cracked and riven, and he could not sit still for a moment. His laugh was apt to end in a cough that racked his entire frame. So impressed was I with the change in him, that when next I saw Flyte-Foller, I particularly asked whether he had noticed any alteration in Owen. But the great man replied that he thought him unusually well. Admittedly he seemed more cheerful than in former days, and when, a few minutes after we had been talking of him, he happened to come in, his manner was certainly quite sprightly.

“How is your dear aunt today?” Sir Weldwyn inquired.

“Coming along nicely, thank you,” he replied, almost frivolously; “once she goes, my friends will get the surprise of their lives.”

Sir Weldwyn looked rather shocked at this way of speaking of a near relative in so dangerous a condition; yet, all the same, I suppose he felt how much nicer it was to have a cheerful little man about the place, rather than the melancholy wreck who used to call on him in such a furtive manner at regular intervals, but contributed then nothing to the spirits of the house! And this change, the great author concluded, must be due — for the rate of his remuneration had not advanced — to his being allowed to give more help.

8

IN mid-July, when the weather was singularly clement for an English summer, Sir Weldwyn fell sick again, following one of their Sunday walks. Seriously ill, this time. And for several nights Owen took it in turns with Phoebe — he called her Phoebe now — to nurse him. No woman could have shown, she acknowledged, more solicitude, more tenderness than he did. For, as well as ministering to the sick man of letters by day, he worked at “the Boke,”hour after hour, until long after darkness had coffined the city.

The crisis passed, and when it was over, Sir Weldwyn began to mend rapidly. It was a comfort to him to realize that his book was nearly finished, and he looked forward eagerly to its publication. (By the by, he noticed that Chaffers was ill again. “It is to be hoped that Sir Montgomery, who, though still young, has charmed a whole generation with the wit and sensibility, no less of his talk than of his writings, will soon be about once more, to the abiding benefit of countless friends and admirers.

One of them told me how all through his long illness. Sir Montgomery’s dachshund, Weldwyn — named after his lifelong friend, Sir Weldwyn Flyte-Foller — remained with him, refusing to leave the room, except if his master wanted anything, when he would go to the top of the staircase and bark for it.”What dreadful, what injurious nonsense these journalists talked! As for Chaffers, the chap had no resistance. One of these days, he’d snuff out, just like that! — and Sir Weldwyn illustrated this end to himself by a spirited snap of the fingers.)

In September the preliminary anonymous puffs began to appear. “Sir Weldwyn’s new book will, undoubtedly, prove the sensation of the autumn publishing season.”“Tens of thousands of readers await this work.”“It is said that the Prime Minister and all the members of the Cabinet have subscribed for it.”“A leading bookseller, when I inquired of him whether he anticipated much of a demand for Sir Weldwyn’s new book, replied ‘not a demand, a furore."’ “The chief bookshops in the West End have been obliged to engage a special clerical staff to deal with the orders before subscription for the new Flyte-Foller.” Sir Weldwyn contemplated these and similar paragraphs with pleasure. Continuing to read on, however, he was dismayed to discover that Chaffers was bringing out a book at about the same time! The precise date, though, was not yet specified.

Really, it was too bad of Chaffers, behaving like that, on purpose, only in order to try to catch the Flyte-Foller public. And all the old stuff raked out again about the Two Crusaders, with that injudicious remark of Gosse’s, too. Of course Chaffers had written it up himself. (You wouldn’t have imagined he could have found the time, considering how ill he continually appeared to be!) As the books drew nearer to publication, the gossip became hotter. There was the whole rigmarole rolled out once more; comparisons between the writings and careers of the David-and-Jonathan-like authors, accounts of how they had been knighted on the same morning. And in the gossip columns he even found paragraphs describing the touching friendship that existed between their wives; though the person responsible for this mischievous rubbish had evidently confounded the two ladies, for Phoebe was described as “fair and petite, a fearless horsewoman, and what men call a sport, able to hold her own in many fields.”Disgusting! The press oughtn’t to be allowed to descend to such depths, He telephoned at once for Owen, who had just returned from his aunt’s.

Equally, the sight of these paragraphs seemed to have enraged Sir Montgomery, for, a few days later, towards the end of the month, walking down Bond Street, I heard a voice calling after me, “Travers, Tracey Travers!”, pronounced with considerable urgency. I turned round, and there was the usually languid, elegant apparition of Chaffers hurrying toward me, though as a rule he ignored my presence and. I had concluded, had forgotten me and my name. “You must let me send you my new book, must . . .”he said. “And. by the way, I see that what’s-his-name Flyte-Foller (do you remember, he was up at Oxford with us?) is publishing something too. I had begun to wonder what had happened to him. Never hear anything of him. But the truth is Lady Chaffers won’t have him in the house. I don’t know why, because she’s not at all particular.”

‘Yes, I noticed the announcement in the press,” I replied, and was turning away, when he called “Travers!” again, and, as if to soften what must have appeared to be the acerbity of his mood, proceeded, “I meant to say, I’ve seen quite a lot of Footmouse lately. D’you remember him? Dear little fellow ! He was staying with us at Martinmas, but then had to go away suddenly to see his aunt. An interesting old woman, I believe; quite a singular story. But she seems always to be ill now, and he has to run down to see her.”

The next day I went to inquire at Sir Weldwyn’s. He heard my voice and called me in. He had just culled from a literary paper the news that Chaffers’ book was to be issued the same day as his own!

His hands shook, his voice trembled as he told me.

“And it’s done on purpose. The creature’s main object, of course, is to clamp himself on to my name and steal my public for his worthless book! But I won’t allow it! I’ll stop it! And where is Footmouse? He should be here. Nobody knows the meaning of the word duty today.”

I did not mention that I had met Sir Montgomery the morning before, and had been astonished by his affability, or that he had spoken of Owen Footmouse. Instead I tried to talk of other things.

Sir Weldwyn, I think, tried to comfort himself, after I had gone, with some such reflections as the following. His own and Chaffers’ books had never been in the same class, never—every discriminating critic had seen that. And this was far and away his best book, probably the biggest thing he would ever achieve. Himself felt it in his very bones. And Owen, too, who had followed every word he had ever penned, shared the same feeling. Think of the originality and also the high spirits of it, the sheer humor; which quality, he knew, had sometimes been lacking in his dramas. And the British public loved humor.

But even these arguments did not bring him a quiet mind, so he rang the bell, sent for his motorcar, and went round at once to see Featherspoon, the chief partner in his publishers, Featherspoon and Fowler. The hail-fellow-well-met Featherspoon, accustomed to dealing with authors, had just returned, at quarter to four, from a good lunch, and proved to be in careless and cordial mood. Of a strong will, notwithstanding his present condition and his normal appearance of geniality, he maintained that he could not, as Sir Weldwyn would have liked, postpone the date of publication. Too late, now. Otherwise he was reassuring: for he was used to having to soothe authors as il they were babies and knew the tricks.

“After all, nob’dy could compare you to that horrid scribbler Chaffers. (There, there!) It’s jush your temperament. An artist to your fingertips, dear fellow. The more book is talked ’bout, the better. A li’ll talk, a flutter in the drawingrooms, does more goo’ to new book than any amount of advertishing in papers. Publisher can’t sell book unless book sells ’tself. (There, there! You artists upset yourselves too easily!) Have a cigar? (There, there!) All rubbish say advertishments sell book. Talk sells books. (Talk is cheap, too.)” Here Mr. Featherspoon paused to laugh loud and long. “Well, ring up, just give me a call. The besh thing you’ve done sho far, by far the besh! You wait see what the papers say later.”

Soothed and fortified, Sir Weldwyn left the office.

9

As the day had begun to draw near, Owen had insisted that, with his great book looming, Sir Weldwyn must keep himself before the public by means of “splash” articles in the daily press, and more especially by lectures; all of which Owen had arranged, as well as writing the notes for the whole of them, and their perorations, word for word. “You can’t be expected to waste your time on such things,” he would explain. “There’s other work that only You can do! So leave this to me.”

When Sir Weldwyn saw the notes, he was pleased. The climaxes seemed beautifully written. Why couldn’t the little chap write like that for himself, he thought ? He had to be inspired, no doubt, by someone greater than he.

The subjects of the lectures, though usually of literary interest, were very varied in their scope. The last, for example, due to be delivered the evening before the publication of his book, consisted of a powerful diatribe against plagiarism and the enormity of those who descend to this despicable practice. Historical instances of it were enumerated and condemned, “Good stuff, good stuff, well played, sir!” Sir Weldwyn said, as he read it over aloud.

Really, the little chap had done his work remarkably well. Sir Weldwyn felt he would like to give him a word of commendation. But where was be? Somehow, since his book had been finished, their Sunday walks seemed to have lapsed, and Phoebe had scarcely seen him for a week. And neither of them had heard anything lately of the progress of his aunt’s illness. Perhaps he was with her now. He would feel it, undoubtedly he would feel it, in spite of the way in which he spoke, when it came!

Sir Weldwyn had come rather to enjoy lecturing. For one thing, he invariably met with such a gratifying reception. Yet he was not spared vexations. Sir Montgomery had become equally active on the platform. With what could only be regarded as an enraging iteration of coincidence Chaffers delivered his last lecture, an attack on plagiarism, only three nights before their respective books were promised, and precisely two nights before Sir Weldwyn was to speak on the same subject! And he, Sir Weldwyn, had planned it to be the most effective, the most, popular of the whole series. Really, it was too bad; shocking; disgraceful: abominable (he raked through his mind for the right epithet). Of course, the treatment was different, he admitted that, and presented in Chaffers’ own manner, but with a poisonous skill (that was the very word for it, Sir Weldwyn confirmed to himself, poisonous). People would begin to talk, if this sort of thing continued. And he, Flyte-Foller and here he banged himself on the chest — would feel a fool. He sent a footman round for Owen, and stormed at him. Owen must see to it. Owen must interview the agent of the enemy and stop it.

Fortunately the little man seemed to know exactly how to quieten him.

“Don’t worry,” he advised. “Only wait, a matter of hours. Then your book will appear, your masterpiece! And that will end it!

That same night pneumonia struck at poor footmouse. It was as it his loyalty and unselfishness had worn him down; his constitution had always been frail, and now the labors of his last few months, the long tramps he had taken with Sir Weldwyn, in order that a great author’s health might be preserved, had thrown an intolerable strain upon it. Sir Weldwyn was genuinely distressed when, next day. the news reached him. He ordered that everything that could be done must be done in order to pull him around. No expense was to be spared. Actually, even through his delirium, he could no doubt, he would — remember that his friend’s great book — their “Boke”— was finished, and tomorrow would appear. But now Sir Weldwyn must be off, to deliver his lecture (awkward, very awkward !).

As yet Owen was by no means delirious. By chance hearing of his illness, I hurried round to call the same evening. Rather to my surprise, a nurse came down and said Mr. Footmouse would see me. The alteration already visible in him was alarming. In manner, however, he was restless, gay, ebullient.

I had never seen him in such a mood before. You would have said that real excitement, as well as fever, was bearing him up. Two nurses stayed with him, day and night, in his sad little flat, with its flowered wallpaper and litter of dusty books and pipes, and its attic windows looking out high above a London thoroughfare. At least he was comfortable— or as comfortable as he could be made, for he had refused to go to the fashionable nursing home to which the Flyte-Follers had commanded him to be taken. The nurse told me, as I left, that she had been astonished by the patient’s unexpectedly magnificent fight.

The following morning, however (so I learned afterwards), the tragedy had deepened. The condition of the sick man had begun to deteriorate, little by little, with every hour. The silence of that pathetic, sickroom was broken only by I be lionmouthed roaring of the traffic below and by the difficult breathing of the wasted figure, tossing on the bed, an example to many — “worn out,” as Sir Weldwyn and Sir Montgomery had each of them in turn, but unknown to the other, confided to the nurse the evening before, “by loyal service to his friends.”(In a dramatic undertone, Sir Weldwyn, unemotional, except in moments such as these, had added, “They also serve who only stand and wait,” and had gone on to explain that he would not be able to visit him the next, day, because his new book was being published and his time would be fully occupied in interviewing journalists. He knew the dying man would wish it so.)

All night long the battle for life had continued.

At dawn, he appeared to be delirious, continually searching for something; trying in reality perhaps, the nurses thought, to remember something from his ordinary daily existence. And then in the late afternoon, he rallied of a sudden — but rallied too swiftly, too entirely, the watchers by his side comprehended, for t he improvement to be permanent. His head seemed clear again. He sat up. ”Bring me,” he ordered in a voice unexpectedly strong and within it an unwonted touch of imperiousness, “bring me at once copies of Sir Weldwyn FlyteFoller’s and Sir Montgomery Chaffers’ new books, published today: Follow M’ Leader and Like Master, Like Man.”

Very touching, this devotion to his friends even in his extremity, the nurses reflected. “Faithful to the last !” How true, how true! To see the books, if he wanted, could do him no harm now. He was already beyond mortal help.

When the messenger brought them, the dying man clutched the volumes and opened them. “They are out, they are out!” he cried in a loud, victorious voice. Then he coughed once — or was it a ghostly cackle of laughter? — and fell back upon the pillows. He never spoke again. In a few minutes, he was dead. But the nurses wondered whether, as he lay dying, he had heard the first shouts of the newsboys in the streets below, and hoped that these cries had not disturbed his end. “Accusations of Plagiarism against Famous Authors! “Furious Authors Threaten Legal Action!” “Publishers Withdraw Books. Sensation!” “Different Authors Publish Same Book Same Day!” There, they sounded again! But the dying man had lain like a. child, with a gentle smile on his face, peaceful and at ease.

In the courts, case after case of alleged libel and plagiarism, of injunction and counter-injunction, unfolded itself before the fascinated gaze of a world-wide public. Gladly the papers reveled in the parts of the story that came out. And after the proceedings were finished and it was safe to comment, gangs of special correspondents took highly moral views of the behavior of the two authors, both equally guilty; and self-damned, doubly, by the lectures they had delivered on plagiarism, so shortly before the exposure of their own sins in this very respect! The fact of their former intimate friendship was commented on, by judges and editors alike, as an aggravation of their offense. One or two newspapers even demanded a withdrawal of the knighthoods previously conferred upon the two men, and letter-writers in the correspondence columns of the press suggested that the culprits ought to be struck back publicly into plain misters, and have their fountain pens ceremonially broken over their noses. Yet in none of the accounts I read did the name Owen Footmouse occur.