e
Defendant Chesterton will conduct his own case; as his heart is not,
like that of the lady in the song, Another's. He wants to fight it
purely as a point of the liberty of letters and public speech; and to
show that the phrase "slavery" (wherein I am brought in question) is
current in the educated controversy about the tendency of Capitalism
today. The solicitor, rather to my surprise, approves this general
sociological line of defence; and says that I may be allowed one or
two witnesses of weight and sociological standing--not (of course) to
say my words are defensible, still less that my view is right--but
simply to say that the Servile State, and Servile terms in connection
with it, are known to them as parts of a current and quite
unmalicious controversy. He has suggested your name: and when I have
written this I have done my duty to him. You could not, by the laws
of evidence, be asked to mix yourself up with my remarks on Lever:
you could only be asked, if at all, whether there was or was not a
disinterested school of sociology holding that Capitalism is close to
Slavery--quite apart from anybody. Do you care to come and see the
fun?

Yours always,

G. K. CHESTERTON.

The suggested line was so successful that Wells's testimony was not
called for. The case was withdrawn. No apology was even asked from
Gilbert, whose solicitor tells me that Messrs. Lever "behaved very
reasonably when once it was made clear to them that Gilbert was not
a scurrilous person making a vulgar and slanderous attack upon their
business."

With H. G. Wells as with Shaw, Gilbert's relations were exceedingly
cordial, but with a cordiality occasionally threatened by explosions
from Wells. Gilbert's soft answer however invariably turned away
wrath and all was well again. "No one," Wells said to me, "ever had
enmity for him except some literary men who did not know him." They
met first, Wells thinks, at the Hubert Blands, and then Gilbert
stayed with Wells at Easton. There they played at the non-existent
game of Gype and invented elaborate rules for it. Cecil came too and
they played the War game Wells had invented. "Cecil," says Wells,
comparing him with Gilbert, "seemed condensed: not quite big enough
for a real Chesterton."

They built too a toy theatre at Easton and among other things
dramatized the minority report of the Poor Law Commission. The play
began by the Commissio