Winter had written to ask whether Henry was
proceeding with a new book, and how pleased he was at the prospective
privilege of publishing it. Nine other publishers had written to inform
him that they would esteem it a favour if he would give them the refusal
of his next work. Messrs. Antonio, the eminent photographers of Regent
Street, had written offering to take his portrait gratis, and asking him
to deign to fix an appointment for a seance. The editor of _Which is
Which_, a biographical annual of inconceivable utility, had written for
intimate details of his age, weight, pastimes, works, ideals, and diet.
The proprietary committee of the Park Club in St. James's Square had
written to suggest that he might join the club without the formality of
paying an entrance fee. The editor of a popular magazine had asked him
to contribute his views to a 'symposium' about the proper method of
spending quarter-day. Twenty-five charitable institutions had invited
subscriptions from him. Three press-cutting agencies had sent him
cuttings of reviews of _Love in Babylon_, and the reviews grew kinder
and more laudatory every day. Lastly, Mr. Onions Winter was advertising
the thirty-first thousand of that work.

It was not to be expected that the recipient of all these overtures, the
courted and sought-for author of _Love in Babylon_, should disarrange
the tenor of his existence in order to read an interview with himself in
a ladies' penny paper. And Henry repeated, as he sat in the midst of the
zinc circle, that he would peruse Flossie Brighteye's article on Sunday
morning at breakfast. Then he began thinking about Flossie's
tight-fitting bodice, and wondered what she had written. Then he
murmured: 'Oh, nonsense! I'll read it to-morrow. Plenty soon enough.'
Then he stopped suddenly and causelessly while applying the towel to the
small of his back, and stood for several moments in a state of fixity,
staring at a particular spot on the wall-paper. And soon he dearly
perceived that he had been too hasty in refusing Aunt Annie's
suggestion. However, he had made his bed, and so he must lie on it,
both figuratively and factually....

The next thing was that he found himself, instead of putting on his
pyjamas, putting on his day-clothes. He seemed to be doing this while
wishing not to do it. He did not possess a
dressing-gown--Saturday-nighters and backbones seldom do. Hence he was
compelled to dress himself completely, save that he assumed