He is famous too, or I should say infamous, as “infamous” is the only word to apply to it, for the illegibility of his handwriting. His friend Harry de Windt, brother of the Ranee of Sarawak, tells a good story of this. It is to the effect that Kernahan once received a letter which ran as follows—
“Dear Kernahan,—Many thanks for your letter. The parts we could make out are splendid. We are using the rest as a railway pass. No one can read enough of it to say that it isn’t a railway pass, and as life is too short for any one to find out what it really says, the collector has in the end to let us through.”
Of Horace Annesley Vachell, one of those whom the gods love, well born, more than usually prepossessing in appearance and disposition, a sportsman, and one of the best novelists of the day, I saw a good deal when he first came back from California, and brought me a letter of introduction, asking me to help him to meet the literary people in London. I was immensely attracted to him, as attracted to him as I was to his books, for which he had a good foundation in the variety of life which he had led. He started with Harrow and the Rifle Brigade, and had been many things, from a rancher in California to an artist, before he found his vocation in literature. The Hill, his famous Harrow school novel, increased his popularity wonderfully, but he was an admirable writer from the first, both in story and style. I have heard it stated that on one of his great books his publishers made the sporting suggestion that he should receive no advance on account of royalties, but a thirty per cent. royalty from the beginning, and that he accepted the offer.
When I wrote to Vachell to ask him what had made him turn his attention to writing, he wrote back—
“My dear Sladen,
“Bad times in California turned me to scribbling, although I had written some short stories for the magazines. I am rather proud of the fact that I burnt my first very long novel on the advice of a friend, who said that he could find a publisher for it, and yet urged cremation instead!”
Vachell told me that one of the triumphs in his career which he valued most was the winning of the half-mile race for Sandhurst against Woolwich, which gave them the victory in the Sports that year, 1881. Later he was asked to run against Myers, the famous American, but wisely refused to do so.
He told me an amusing story of the hundred-pound prize which T. P.’s Weekly offered for the person who could discover most mistakes, typographical and so forth, in one of his novels, which he had been unable to revise himself. A parson wrote to him most indignantly, saying that there were no mistakes at all in the book, and that he was surprised that Vachell should lend himself to a cheap dodge for advertising a novel. He hinted that Vachell had obtained money from him—he had bought a six-shilling copy—under false pretences! Vachell in return sent him one announcement of the result of the competition. The man who won the prize discovered nearly four hundred errors! This sounds quite incredible, but it is true, as a most lengthy document in his possession proves. The knowledge of his works displayed by the winner fairly confounded him.
He had some strange personal experiences in California. A big cowboy rushed out of a saloon in the West, one day, followed by another cowboy brandishing a big six-shooter. The first cowboy took refuge behind the only cover in sight, a telegraph-post. He dodged round this, while the second cowboy emptied his pistol into the post. All six bullets were in the post! Afterwards, when he was chaffed by me for missing his man, he retorted, “Boys, the son of a gun shrunk!” Both cowboys were full of sheep-herder’s delight.
And he told me another amusing Californian anecdote.