The Smuggler's Cave

by George A. Birmingham

"Lilith!"

"Surely you know 'The Lispings of Lilith,'" said Mrs. Eames.

Sir Evelyn had to confess that he did not.

"Lilith," said Mrs. Eames, "is my niece, Beth Appleby. My name was Appleby before I married poor dear Timothy. She does a column called 'The Lispings of Lilith' which comes out every week in about a dozen provincial papers. Syndicated, you know. I couldn't get on without it. It keeps me up to all that's going on in the great world outside Hailey Compton. Surely you've read it?"

"Never," said Sir Evelyn.

"You'd have liked last week's. There was a Lisping about you. 'Lilith lisps,' that's how every paragraph begins, 'that Sir Evelyn Dent, who has recently retired from public life, is devoting his leisure to a study of the history of English smuggling on which he is expected to produce a ——' Now what was it Beth called it? Either a monograph or a magnum opus."

Sir Evelyn was aware that some paragraphs, based on hints which he had given himself, had appeared here and there about his devotion to historical research. No doubt "Lilith" or Miss Appleby had copied one of them into the column of provincial lispings.

"Very annoying," he said. "Very annoying indeed. This craze for the publication of the personal affairs of private individuals is one of the crying evils of our time."

But Mrs. Eames, though talkative, was by no means a fool. She knew that Sir Evelyn did not find paragraphs in the papers about his historical work in the least annoying. He liked them. He would have liked them even if they had dealt with his favourite shaving soap. All eminent men like this kind of publicity. If they did not they would not get it. For journalists only advertise those who supply the advertisements. Mrs. Eames was wise enough to know this, but also wise enough to pretend she did not.

"It must be most trying," she said. "That's the worst of being famous. Now what about your photo of the cave? I mustn't interrupt you by chattering here. Would you like me to pose for you as a pirate? I mean to say a smuggler. A real live smuggler seated on a stone at the entrance of the cave would be rather a catch in your book, wouldn't it?"