in Bristol for vagrancy while I was in England pleaded that he was a
contributor to the Spectator. In fact, it is an honour that everybody
seems to be able to get but me.

I had often tried before I went to England to contribute to the great
English newspapers. I had never succeeded. But I hoped that while in
England itself the very propinquity of the atmosphere, I mean the very
contiguity of the surroundings, would render the attempt easier. I tried
and I failed. My failure was all the more ignominious in that I had very
direct personal encouragement. "By all means," said the editor of the
London Times, "do some thing for us while you are here. Best of all,
do something in a political way; that's rather our special line." I
had already received almost an identical encouragement from the London
Morning Post, and in a more qualified way from the Manchester Guardian.
In short, success seemed easy.

I decided therefore to take some simple political event of the peculiar
kind that always makes a stir in English politics and write it up for
these English papers. To simplify matters I thought it better to use one
and the same incident and write it up in three different ways and get
paid for it three, times. All of those who write for the Press will
understand the motive at once. I waited therefore and watched the papers
to see if anything interesting might happen to the Ahkoond of Swat or
the Sandjak of Novi Bazar or any other native potentate. Within a couple
of days I got what I wanted in the following item, which I need hardly
say is taken word for word from the Press despatches:

"Perim, via Bombay. News comes by messenger that the Shriek of Kowfat
who has been living under the convention of 1898 has violated the modus
operandi. He is said to have torn off his suspenders, dipped himself in
oil and proclaimed a Jehad. The situation is critical."

Everybody who knows England knows that this is just the kind of news
that the English love. On our side of the Atlantic we should be bothered
by the fact that we did not know where Kowfat is, nor what was the
convention of 1898. They are not. They just take it for granted that
Kowfat is one of the many thousand places that they "own," somewhere
in the outer darkness. They have so many Kowfats that they cannot keep
track of them.

I knew therefore that everybody would be interested in any discussion
of what was at once called "the Kowfat Crisis" and I wrote it up. I
resisted