mercial travellers; and also that men of such true talents should have such abundant repertories and be so happy in emptying them. Even his special hero Voaden contributed one anecdote, but Rudd called to his aid the memory of the grosser jests of Shakespeare and forgave him.

Voaden, rising from his seat and drifting round the walls, came a little later to Rudd's remote chair.

"And what do you write?" he asked in pleasant half-ironical tones.

Rudd tremblingly replied that beyond journalism he had done nothing-that is, in print. Not yet, but

"Then you're here under false pretences," said Voaden. "Don't let our host know that or he'll send for the police." He laughed.

"I was brought," Rudd explained.

"I know it," said Voaden. "So was I. Terrible places these. Nothing but talk, talk, talk-the curse of London."

Rudd wondered why then he came, having still to learn that literary men spend a great part of their lives in bearing such crosses.

The great man sat down. "You want to write books?" he said. "Then I suppose you will. But it is a pity to give up other work unless you feel absolutely driven to. You'll get so tired of yourself, for one thing; always turning it into copy. But if I can help you, let me. Send me some of your things. Re

member now, I mean it. Send them to my club, the Garrick."

Rudd flushed and promised.

"Let me see," said Voaden, "I haven't got your name."

Rudd wrote down his name and address.

"Rudd Sergison," said Voaden. "Not bad for a title-page. You know mine perhaps?"

"Mr. Voaden," said Rudd.

"No: Voaden. No Mister-y among fellow-artists," he replied. "Don't forget that. Good night. I've had enough for one evening."

Rudd also left and walked home, meditating on the likeness between great men and smaller men.

R

CHAPTER XXIV
XXIV

SURNAME ONLY

UDD was glad to be alone; he had had more than enough of Bendy.

Bendy was glad to stay on and improve the occasion. He did not often get inside men's rooms, although he had walked to their doors with any number.

Rudd also wished to think over the evening. He had enjoyed it but little. The dinner was poor; the oratory was thin or conceited; his heroes had disappointed him, and he was not wholly happy about his unwarranted invasion of Gard's rooms, little thruster as he knew Gard to be.

But there was always Mr. Voaden's friendliness to remember with pleasure. Mr. Voaden might have been slightly more seasoned than he had wanted to find him: just a little hard-bitten; but probably that was the price of knowing so much about the machinery of human nature.

Rudd would have liked to have posted some manuscripts to Mr. Voaden that very night, but it would be a little too swift. Better wait till to-morrow. Besides, there was a difficulty.

The difficulty had not disappeared the next morning when Rudd awoke, and he carried it about with him most of the day. And then, when evening came, and he pulled out his little collection of manuscripts and went through them to see what would be best to submit to the great man, the difficulty loomed larger than ever.

Having at last made his choice (and he had better have sent all) Rudd set his teeth and attacked it. In other words, he took a sheet of paper to write the letter to accompany them, and in writing it to begin it on equal terms! That was the rub-equal terms! Try as he might Rudd could not cut out the "Mr.": could not write "Dear Voaden."

Yet the Mr. had been meticulously forbidden, "Literature is a fellowship," Mr. Voaden had again said on the stairs. "There should be no Mister-y in a trade union. Do you understand?" And Rudd had murmured something which might have been acquiescence.

And now the Mr. was a tyrant. "Dear Mr. Voaden," "My dear Mr. Voaden": it insisted upon being there. Again and again Rudd strove seriously to omit it, but always he failed. His pen kicked and refused.

And then when at last, as an experiment, he brought himself to write it, just on an odd sheet of paper, he was overcome with shame at the result. "My dear Voaden"-how could a youngster like himself address the author of The Sea and the Stars with such effrontery? Perhaps "Dear Voaden," without the patroniz

ing possessive "My," would be more natural, less monstrous. But no, that looked almost worse. And yet he had been told to send the things and commanded to adopt a familiar form.

Rudd tried again and again, and at last evolved this compromise:

"MY DEAR MR. VOADEN (I am very sorry but I find it impossible to leave out the Mr.),-Here are a few of the MSS. which you so kindly offered to look at. "With very many thanks for your kindness to me, "I am,

"Yours sincerely,

"RUDD SERGISON."

This letter he put into the big envelope, and then discovered that he had no stamps.

In any outlying part of London, when you are without stamps late at night, there is only one thing to do; and that is to go to a public-house, order something to drink, and ask to be obliged in your difficulty. On the Continent they have the excellent and on the face of it not immoral custom of permitting tobacconists' shops to serve as sumptuary post-offices, a system that greatly simplifies life; but the English have yet to learn to be thus sensible. On the other hand, with an eye perhaps to correcting the embarrassments caused by the Postmaster-General's want of enterprise, the licensing authorities had been very generous in the supply of public-houses in the neighbourhood of