alicious pleasure in pointing out a mistake in the glowing scene. He
anchors his yacht in the middle of the Thames--as if the tyrannic
authorities of the Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any other
craft, to anchor in midstream!

"After the brief cruise our friendship grew rapidly. I now know
Swinnerton--probably as well as any man knows him; I have penetrated into
the interior of the shop. He has done several things since I first knew
him--rounded the corner of thirty, grown a beard, under the orders of a
doctor, and physically matured. Indeed, he looks decidedly stronger than
in fact he is--he was never able to pass the medical examination for the
army. He is still in the business of publishing, being one of the
principal personages in the ancient and well-tried firm of Chatto &
Windus, the English publishers of Swinburne and Mark Twain. He reads
manuscripts, including his own--and including mine. He refuses
manuscripts, though he did accept one of mine. He tells authors what they
ought to do and ought not to do. He is marvellously and terribly
particular and fussy about the format of the books issued by his firm.
Questions as to fonts of type, width of margins, disposition of
title-pages, tint and texture of bindings really do interest him. And
misprints--especially when he has read the proofs himself--give him
neuralgia and even worse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal publisher for
an author.

"Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-line of his. He still writes for
himself in the evenings and at week-ends--the office never sees him on
Saturdays.

"Frank Swinnerton has other gifts. He is a surpassingly good raconteur. By
which I do not signify that the man who meets Swinnerton for the first,
second or third time will infallibly ache with laughter at his remarks.
Swinnerton only blossoms in the right atmosphere; he must know exactly
where he is; he must be perfectly sure of his environment, before the
flower uncloses. And he merely relates what he has seen, what he has taken
part in. The narrations would be naught if he were not the narrator. His
effects are helped by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by his
utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class realists he is
also a romantic, and in his mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of
fundamental benevolence--as befits the attitude of one who does not worry
because human nature is not something different from what it actually is.