"I suppose, Philip," said Mr. Mablethorpe one morning, ruefully surveying a highly scented missive in a mauve envelope, forwarded by his publishers, "that my books are read by other people besides schoolgirls; but why in Heaven's name should no one else ever write to me about them? Not that I want any one to write at all,—the penny post is the curse of modern civilization,—but I could do with a touch of variety now and then. I have only once in my life received a letter, as an author, from a man, and that was from a pork-butcher in the north of England, who wrote to point out, most helpfully and sensibly, that I was guilty of a technical error in making my hero purchase both kidneys and bacon at the same shop. I should like to get a lot of letters like that: they are extremely valuable. But what do I get? Letters by the score from schoolgirls—sometimes from a syndicate of schoolgirls—all asking for my autograph and endeavouring to find out, by more or less transparent devices, how old I am and whether I am married or not! You can't choke them off. If you don't answer they write again, enclosing a stamped envelope, which hangs round your neck like a millstone for weeks. If you do, they tell all the other girls, and before you know where you are you find you have tapped Niagara. Let us see what Zenana has found me out now."
He opened the mauve envelope, and read the letter with savage grunts.
"This, Philip," he said, "is from Gwendoline Briggs and Clara Waddell. You will be interested to hear that they sit up reading my innocuous works in the dead of night, after the other girls have gone to sleep. Well, I hope the Head Mistress catches them at it, that's all!... Here you are: what did I tell you?
... We often wonder what you are like. One of us thinks you are about forty, with rather tired grey eyes—
"Impudent minx!
—but the other thinks you are much younger than that; clean-shaven, with a very firm mouth.
"This sort of thing makes me quite sick.... Yes, I thought as much; they want my autograph.
Will you please send two, please, as we are not sisters—only great chums.
"Where do these brats hail from?" Mr. Mablethorpe turned back the page and consulted the heading of the letter.