"Lush meadows, flecked with fat red cattle feeding beside slow streams; broad lawns rising to wooded hills, on which many-towered gray buildings rose; sudden thick-walled towns; factories, winding streams, noble trees, and finally a yellow mist and London!
"I am at a small inn, near the Terminal Hotel. I ate my dinner last night surrounded by English people. With brain still pulsing with the motion of the sea, I went to my bed, rejoicing to feel around me the solid stone walls of this small but ancient hotel."
After a long walk in search of my publishers I was repaid by finding several letters awaiting me, and among them was one from Zangwill, who wrote, "Come at once to my house. I have a message for you."
His address was almost as quaint in my ear as that of Sir Walter Besant, which was Frognals End—or something like it, but I found it at last on the way to 'Ampstead 'Eath. The house was a modest one but his study was made cheery by a real fire of "coals," and many books.
He greeted me heartily and said, "I have an invitation for you to the Authors' Society Dinner which comes next week. It will be what you would call 'a big round-up' and you can't afford to miss it. You must go at once and order that evening suit."
The idea of the dinner allured me but I shuffled, "Can't I go as I am?"
"Certainly not. It is a full-dress affair."
I argued, "But George Bernard Shaw is reported to be without the dress suit."
"Yes," admitted Zangwill, "Shaw goes everywhere in tweeds, but then he is Shaw, and can afford to do as he pleases. You will not see him at this dinner. He seldom goes to such functions."
With a shudder I plunged. "I'll do it! If I must surrender, let it be on a grand occasion like this. I am in your hands."