"he was right. We can't help
him, except by taking a back seat and letting him speak for himself. I
shall quote freely. The Song of Confession is the best answer to
Hanson."

"It seems to me," said Stables, "you'll want a whole number at this
rate."

"I shall want six columns, if I'm to do him any justice," said Maddox,
rising. "Poor beggar, I expect he's a bit off colour. I shall go and
look him up."

At eight that evening he went and looked him up. He found him in his
room tranquilly reading. Thinking of him as a man of genius who had
courted failure and madly fooled away his chances, and seeing him
sitting there, so detached, and so unconscious, Maddox was profoundly
moved. He had come with cursing and with consolation, with sympathy,
with prophecy, with voluble belief. But all he could say was, "It's
all right, Rickman. It's great, my son, it's great."

All the same he did not conceal his doubts as to the sort of reception
Rickman had to expect. That part of the business, he said, had been
grossly mismanaged, and it was Rickman's own fault.

"Look here," he said, "what on earth possessed you to go and refuse
that introduction to Hanson? Was it just your cheek, or the devil's
own pride, or what?"

"Neither," said Rickman, in a tone that pathetically intimated that
he was worn out. "I think it was chiefly my desire for peace and
quiet. I'm writing some more poems, you see. I wouldn't have refused
it at any other time."

"At any other time it wouldn't have mattered so much. You should be
civil to the people who can help you."

"I rather distrust that sort of civility myself. I've seen too much of
the dirty back stairs of Fleet Street. I've tumbled over the miserable
people who sit on them all day long, and I don't mean anybody to
tumble over me. When I've got my best trousers on I want to keep them
clean."

"It's a mistake," said Maddox, "to wear your best trousers every day."

"Perhaps. But I mean to wear them."

"Wear them by all means. But you must make up your mind for a certain
amount of wear and tear. In your case it will probably be tear."

"That's my look-out."

"Quite so. I wouldn't say anything if it was only Hanson you'd
offended, but you shouldn't alienate your friends."

"My friends?"

"Yes. Why, oh why, did you make that joke about Mackinnon's head?"

"We were all making jokes about Mackinnon's head."

"Yes; but we weren't all of us bringing out poems the next day. Your
position, R