“Do you know why women always sit on one side when they are alone in a hansom?”
“No, I have no idea. Some charmingly morbid reason, I suppose?”
“Oh, you can call it morbid, if you like,” I said. “It is only because there happens to be a looking-glass there.”
George and Mr. Aix have different publishers, but the same literary agent. A publisher once took them both to the top of a high hill in Surrey and tempted them—to sell him the rights of every novel they did for ten years, and be kept in luxury by him. But they both shook their heads and said, “You must go to Middleman!” Then he took them to a London restaurant and made them drunk, and still they shook their heads and sent him to Middleman, who makes all their bargains for them, but he can’t control all the reviews.
One morning Mr. Aix came in to see George, with a blue press-cutting in his hand; I was in the study then, as it happened, and I did not go. George never minds our hearing everything, he says it is too much of an effort to be a hero to one’s typewriter, or one’s daughter.
“I am in a rage!” Mr. Aix said, and so I suppose he was, though he looked more like a white gooseberry than ever. “Just let me get hold of this fellow they have got on The Bittern, and see if I don’t wring his neck for him!”
George didn’t say anything, and so I asked—somebody had to—“What has The Bittern man done, please?”
“Done! He has dammed me with faint praise, that’s all! I’d have the fellow know that I’m read in every pothouse, every kitchen in England! Here, George, take it, and read it, the infamous thing!”
George read it—at least he ran his eyes over it. He didn’t seem to want to see it particularly, and gave it back as if it bit him, saying—
“Well, my dear fellow, you must take the rough with the smooth—one can always learn something from criticism, or so I find!”