glish certainly have the
drop on us in the matter of clubs. They live about in the haunts
beloved of Thackeray, and everybody else you ever heard of. Pleasant
place, the Garrick. Something like our Players, but better. Slick
collection of old portraits. Fine bust there of Will Shakespeare,
found bottled up in some old passage.

Fashionable young man, Walpole. I can't remember exactly whether or
not he had on all these things; but he's the sort that, if he had on
nothing, would look as if he had: silk topper, spats, buttonhole
bouquet. Asked me if I had yet been to Ascot. "Oh, you must go to
Ascot." Buys his cigarettes, in that English way, in bulk, not by the
box. "Stuff some in your pocket," he said. "Won't you have a whiskey
and soda?"

Difficult person to talk with, as the only English he knows is the
King's English. I was endeavouring to explain that I had left New York
rather suddenly. "I just beat it, you know," I said.

"You beat it?" said Mr. Walpole.

"Yes, I just up and skidooed."

"You skidooed?"

I saw that I should have to talk like John Milton. "Sure," I said, "I
left without much preparation." And then we spoke of some writer I do
not care for. "I don't get him," I said.

"You don't get him?" inquired Mr. Walpole.

"No," I said, "I can't see him at all."

"You can't see him?" queried Mr. Walpole.

More Milton, I perceived. "I quite fail," I said, "to appreciate the
gentleman's writings."

Mr. Walpole got that.

"Fortitude" had done him very well. The idea of Russia had always
fascinated him; he had enough money to run him for a couple of years,
and he was leaving shortly for Russia. "Is there any one here you
would like me to help you to see?" he asked. Queer way for a gentleman
to treat a probable crook. "Have you met Mr. James?" Walpole was very
strong with Mr. James, it seemed.

Read aloud a letter just received from Mr. James, which he had been
fingering, to show that his informal, epistolary style was identical
with that of his recent autobiographical writings, which we had been
discussing. "Bennett, of course you should see Arnold Bennett." Great
friend of Walpole's. "And Mrs. Belloc Lowndes," said Mr. Walpole, "you
really must know her; knows as much about the writing game as any one
in England. I'll write those three letters to-night."

Suddenly he asked me if I were married. "All Americans are," was his
comment. He had to be going. Some stupid affai