“Quite,” said I, unperturbed; “oh, quite.”
“And,” he continued, “I am kept very busy with one thing and another. It is true that I have given up my business and now intend devoting all my energy to literary work, but just at the present moment I am kept at it from dawn to dusk.”
Silence fell upon us, a rather oppressive silence, I think, for I remember hunting about in my mind for something to say. I noticed a copy of The Playboy of the Western World on the little table before us.
“Still reading Synge?” I asked.
[62]
]“Yes; still reading Synge,” he replied. Then, after a pause: “A great man, Synge.”
“An interesting man, a curious man,” said I, “but great? Only G. H. Mair, Willie Yeats and high school girls think Synge great, Houghton.”
“Is that so?” asked he languidly.
I invited him to have a cigarette, but he refused. In truth, we were both very uncomfortable and, by the subtle understanding and inverted sympathy that hearty dislike engenders, we rose simultaneously to our feet, rather hurriedly left the room, and soon found ourselves in the hall downstairs. He opened the front door and we stood for a moment, looking around us.
Next day my interview with Houghton appeared in The Manchester Courier, with a portrait of the young dramatist. I do not remember a word of that article, but I am quite sure it was insincere, without distinction, and full of inanities; indeed, I would bet at least ten drachmæ that there occur in it such expressions as “inherent modesty,” “charming personality,” “interesting outlook on life,” and so on. A journalist (must I say it?) is like a barrister: he is fee’d to say what is required to be said. At all events, the interview pleased Houghton, for he sent me a copy of Hindle Wakes with a jocular inscription on its title-page.
. . . . . . . .