Annan was up to his neck in saliva. That great army of slight acquaintances with which the average man is afflicted became old friends over night.
Annan was running the whole gamut from these, and from readers utterly unknown to him. Every mail brought requests for loans, autographs, and for personal assistance of various sorts; and there were endless charitable appeals, offers to lecture, offers of election to clubs, guilds, associations, societies he never heard of; requests for his patronage, his endorsement of saleable articles; requests for criticism upon the myriad efforts of unsuccessful writers; demands that he should “place” their effusions; personal calls from agents, publishers, cranks.
And there was, of course, a great influx of silliness—flirtatious letters, passionate love letters, sentimental requests for signed photographs. And among these, as always, were offensive letters, repulsive letters, sinister and usually anonymous. The entire gamut.
Toward him there was a new and flattering attitude, even in old friends, and no matter how honest and sincere, even in those who disapproved his work, this unconscious attitude toward a publicly successful man was noticeable.
Otherwise, in public, his face and name were becoming sufficiently well known to attract curiosity.
In shops clerks would smirk and inquire, “Mr. Annan, the novelist?” Proprietors and underlings in his accustomed haunts were likely to point him out to other customers. He was becoming accustomed to being stared at.
Now, some of these phenomena are anything but agreeable to the newly successful; but, en masse, these manifestations are not calculated to inculcate steadiness and modesty in anybody.
A thousand times Annan had told himself that no success could ever unbalance him a fraction of one degree. But success is an insidious fever. One walks with it without suspecting the infection. Without knowing that three-quarters of the people who shake one’s hand are carriers of this same and subtle fever.
However, Barry Annan appeared to thrive. All was well with him. All was going “according to plan.”