fely carried out, Shaw hit on the idea of residence close to
the tunnel which connects Adelphi with the Strand. Emerging from his
house plain, Jaeger-clad, bearded and saturnine Shaw, he entered the
tunnel, in a cleft in which was a cellar. Here he donned the
Chesterton properties, the immense padding of chest, and so on, the
Chesterton sombrero hat and cloak and pince-nez, and there he left
the Shaw beard and the Shaw clothes, the Shaw expression of
countenance, and all the Shaw theories. He emerged into the Strand
"G.K.C.," in whose identity he visited all the cafes, ate all the
meats, rode in all the cabs, and smiled on all the sinners. The day's
work done, the Chesterton manuscripts delivered, the proofs read, the
bargains driven, the giant figure returned to the tunnel, and once
again was back in Adelphi, the Shaw he was when he left it--back to
the Jaegers, the beard, the Socialism, the statistics, and the
sardonic letters to the _Times_.*

[* From _The Bystander_. 1 September, 1909.]

Bernard Shaw is a man of unusual generosity, but I think from his
letters he must also be quite a good man of business. G.K. was so
greatly the opposite that G.B.S. urged him again and again to do the
most ordinary things to protect the literary rights of himself and
others. Thus, in the only undated letter in the whole packet, he begs
Gilbert to back up the Authors' Society:

MY DEAR G.K.C.,

I am one of the unhappy slaves who, on the two big committees of
your Trade Union (the Society of Authors) drudge at the heartbreaking
work of defending our miserable profession against being devoured,
body and soul, by the publishers--themselves a pitiful gang of
literature-struck impostors who are crumpled up by the booksellers,
who, though small folk, are at least in contact with reality in the
shape of the book buyer. It is a ghastly and infuriating business,
because the authors _will_ go to lunch with their publishers and sell
them anything for L20 over the cigarettes, but it has to be done; and
I, with half a dozen others, have to do it.

Now I missed the last committee meeting (electioneering: I am here
doing two colossal meetings of miners every night for Keir Hardie);
but the harassed secretary writes that it was decided to take
proceedings in the case of a book of yours which you (oh Esau, Esau!)
sold to John--(John is a--well--no matter: w