its descendant, Lord Middleweight, and it had the same soppy grin
that he has when he thinks he's said something clever. Damned ass, that
chap!_

_Alexander sent my comedy back. He sent a note along with it and told me
what a clever lad I am and more or less hinted that when I've grown up,
I can send him another play. I suppose he thinks I'm a kid in
knickerbockers. The result of this business is that I'm going to try and
get a job as a dramatic critic. If I do, God help the next play he
produces. I'm a hurt man, and I shall let the world know about it. I'm
half-way through another piece which will take some place by storm, I
hope. It's a very bright play, much better than the muck Oscar Wilde
wrote, not so melodramatic, and tons better than anything Bernard Shaw
has written. It's all about me._

_We've got an old woman called Clutters to housekeep for us. I chose her
on account of her name, and it is a piece of good luck that she cooks
extraordinarily well. There is also a maid, but we don't know her name,
so we call her Magnolia. I'm really writing all this rot to get myself
into the "twitter-twitter" mood. One of the characters in my new comedy
talks like a character in a book by E. F. Benson, and I have to work
myself up into a state of babbling fatuity before I can write her lines
for her._

_Come to London as soon as you can._

_Gilbert."_

6

The prospect of settling in London in the society of his schoolfriends
pleased him. Marsh and Galway had tried to persuade him to make his home
in Dublin, pleading that it was the duty of every educated Irishman to
live in Ireland. "We haven't got many educated men on our side," Marsh
said, "not a hundred in the whole of Ireland, and we need people like
you!" They talked of political schemes that must be prepared for the
parliament that would some day be re-established in College Green. "And
they can only be prepared by educated men," Marsh said.

Henry would not listen to them. His longing was to be with Gilbert and
Roger and Ninian in London. Dublin made very little appeal to him, and
the job of regenerating Ireland was so immense that it frightened him.
"I haven't got a common ground with you people," he said to Marsh and
Galway. "You're Catholic to start off with, and I'm like my father, I
think the Catholic religion is a contemptible religion. And you're not
interested in anything but Ireland and the Gaelic movement. I'm
interested in everything!"

"Don't