THE AUTHOR.
I was reading proofs in my corner of the compartment, as I often do, and every time that I looked up I noticed the little shabby pathetic man with his eyes fixed upon me.
After a while I finished and put the proofs away with a sigh of relief.
"So you're an author too?" he said.
"Yes," I said, though I didn't want to talk at all.
"You wouldn't have thought I was one," he went on, "would you? What would you have said I did for a living?"
I am too old to guess such things. One nearly always gives offence. Moreover, I have seen too many authors to show any surprise.
"I'm not only a writer," he said, "but I dare say I'm better known than you."
"That's not difficult," I said.
"I am read by thousands—very likely millions—every day."
"This is very strange," I said. "Millions? Who are you, then? Not—no, you can't be. You haven't a red beard; you are not in knickerbockers; you don't recall Shakspeare. Nor can you be Mrs. Barclay. And yet, of course, I must have heard your name. Might I hear it again, now?"
"My name is unknown," he said. "All my work is anonymous."
"Not advertisements?" I said. "Not posters'? You didn't write the 'Brown Cat's thanks,' or 'Alas, my poor brother,' or——"
"Certainly not," he replied. "My line is literature. Do you ever go to cinemas?"
"Now and then," I said, "when it rains, or I have an unexpected hour, or it is too late for a play."
"Then you have read me," he said. "I write for cinemas."
"There isn't much writing there," I suggested.
"Oh, isn't there!" he answered. "Haven't you ever noticed in a cinema how letters are always being brought in on trays?"
"Yes, I have."
"And then the hero or the villain or the victim opens them and reads them?"
"Yes."
"And then the audience has to read them?"
"Yes; there's no doubt about that."
"Well, those are all written by me. I mean, of course, all those that a certain film company requires."
"Marvellous," I said.
"I not only compose them—and it requires thought and compression, I can tell you—but I copy them out for the photographer too."
"Is that why they're always in the same handwriting?" I asked.
"Yes, that's it," he said. "It's mine."
"Then you can tell me something I have always wanted to know," I said. "I have noticed that when a letter written, say, by the Duke of Pemmican is thrown on the screen it is always signed 'Duke of Pemmican.' Why is that? In real life wouldn't he sign it 'Pemmican'?"
"He might," said my companion. "I don't know; but what I do know is that the cinema public expects a duke to call himself a duke; and we pride ourselves on giving them what they want."
"If you were making King George write a letter," I said, "would he sign himself 'King George'?"
"Certainly," he replied. "Why not? That's a good idea, anyway. A film with a letter from the King in it would go. As it is, his only place in a cinema has been to indicate—by the appearance of his portrait on the screen—that the show is over. It isn't fair that he should come to be looked upon as a spoil-sport like that. It has a bad effect on the young. Many thanks for your suggestion. I'll give him a show with a letter."