mptying a pillar-box when I met him. I record the
conversation.

CHUMMIE: Blessed if it ain't Marge! And what would you like
for a Christmas present?

MARGE: I want to spend a week or so at the house of the
great poet, Lord Inmemorison. If you really wish to please me, you
will use your influence to get me a job there. Your uncle being
Inmemorison's butler, you ought to be able to work it.

CHUMMIE: Might. What would you go as?

MARGE: Anything--but temporary parlour-maid is my strong suit.

CHUMMIE: And what's your game?

MARGE: I'm sick of patronizing politicians and want to patronize a
poet. When all's said and done, Inmemorison is a proper certificated
poet. Besides, I want to put something by for my rainy
autobiography.

CHUMMIE: Oh, well. I'll try and lay a pipe for it. May come off or
may not.

Chummie managed the thing to perfection. My sister Casey wrote me one of
the best testimonials I have ever had, and by Christmas I was safely
installed for a week. Chummie's uncle treated me with the utmost
consideration, and it is to him that I owe many of the thrilling details
that I am now able to present to the panting public. Although there was
a high leather screen in the drawing-room which was occasionally useful
to me, my opportunities for direct observation were limited.

Lord Inmemorison had a magnificent semi-detached mansion (including a
bath-room, h. and c.) in one of the wildest and loneliest parts of
Wandsworth Common. The rugged beauty of the scenery around is reflected
in many of his poems.

There were, as was to be expected, several departures from ordinary
convention in the household. Dinner was at seven. The poet went to bed
immediately after dinner, and punctually at ten reappeared in the
drawing-room and began reading his poems aloud.

The family generally went to bed at ten sharp.

I heard him read once. There were visitors in the house who wished to
hear the great man, and it was after midnight before a general
retirement could take place. He had a rich, sonorous, over-proof,
pre-war voice, considerable irritability, and a pretty girl sitting on
his knee. The last item was, of course, an instance of poetical licence.

The girl had asked him to read from "Maud" and he had consented. He
began with his voice turned down so low that in my position behind the
screen I could only just catch the opening lines:

"Hail to thee