The Clicking of Cuthbert

themselves up with his breakfast egg.

At this point in his meditations he was aware that his hostess was

looming up before him with a pale young man in horn-rimmed spectacles

at her side. There was in Mrs. Smethurst's demeanour something of the

unction of the master-of-ceremonies at the big fight who introduces the

earnest gentleman who wishes to challenge the winner.

"Oh, Mr. Brusiloff," said Mrs. Smethurst, "I do so want you to meet Mr.

Raymond Parsloe Devine, whose work I expect you know. He is one of our

younger novelists."

The distinguished visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner through

the shrubbery, but did not speak. Inwardly he was thinking how exactly

like Mr. Devine was to the eighty-one other younger novelists to whom

he had been introduced at various hamlets throughout the country.

Raymond Parsloe Devine bowed courteously, while Cuthbert, wedged into

his corner, glowered at him.

"The critics," said Mr. Devine, "have been kind enough to say that my

poor efforts contain a good deal of the Russian spirit. I owe much to

the great Russians. I have been greatly influenced by Sovietski."

Down in the forest something stirred. It was Vladimir Brusiloff's mouth

opening, as he prepared to speak. He was not a man who prattled

readily, especially in a foreign tongue. He gave the impression that

each word was excavated from his interior by some up-to-date process of

mining. He glared bleakly at Mr. Devine, and allowed three words to

drop out of him.

"Sovietski no good!"

He paused for a moment, set the machinery working again, and delivered

five more at the pithead.

"I spit me of Sovietski!"

There was a painful sensation. The lot of a popular idol is in many

ways an enviable one, but it has the drawback of uncertainty. Here

today and gone tomorrow. Until this moment Raymond Parsloe Devine's

stock had stood at something considerably over par in Wood Hills

intellectual circles, but now there was a rapid slump. Hitherto he had

been greatly admired for being influenced by Sovietski, but it appeared

now that this was not a good thing to be. It was evidently a rotten

thing to be. The law could not touch you for being influenced by

Sovietski, but there is an ethical as well as a legal code, and this it

was obvious that Raymond Parsloe Devine had transgressed. Women drew

away from him slightly, holding their skirts. Men looked at him

censoriously. Adeline Smethurst started violently, and dropped a

tea-cup. And Cuthbert Banks, doing his popular imitation of a sardine

in his corner, felt for the first time that life held something of

sunshine.

Raymond Parsloe Devine was plainly shaken, but he made an adroit

attempt to recover his lost prestige.

"When I say I have been influenced by Sovietski, I mean, of course,

that I was once under his spell. A young writer commits many follies. I

have long since passed through that phase. The false glamour of

Sovietski has ceased to dazzle me. I now belong whole-heartedly to the

school of Nastikoff."

There was a reaction. People nodded at one another sympathetically.

After all, we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders, and a lapse

at the outset of one's career should not be held against one who has

eventually seen the light.

"Nastikoff no good," said Vladimir Brusiloff, coldly. He paused,

listening to the machinery.

"Nastikoff worse than Sovietski."

He paused again.

"I spit me of Nastikoff!" he said.

This time there was no doubt about it. The bottom had dropped out of

the market, and Raymond Parsloe Devine Preferred were down in the

cellar with no takers. It was clear to the entire assembled company

that they had been all wrong about Raymond Parsloe Devine. They had

allowed him to play on their innocence and sell them a pup. They had

taken him at his own valuation, and had been cheated into admiring him

as a man who amounted to something, and all the while he had belonged

to the school of Nastikoff. You never can tell. Mrs. Smethurst's guests

were well-bred, and there was consequently no violent demonstration,

but you could see by their faces what they felt. Those nearest Raymond

Parsloe jostled to get further away. Mrs. Smethurst eyed him stonily

through a raised lorgnette. One or two low hisses were heard, and over

at the other end of the room somebody opened the window in a marked

manner.

Raymond Parsloe Devine hesitated for a moment, then, realizing his

situation, turned and slunk to the door. There was an audible sigh of

relief as it closed behind him.

Vladimir Brusiloff proceeded to sum up.

"No novelists any good except me. Sovietski--yah! Nastikoff--bah! I spit

me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G.

Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any

good except me."

And, having uttered this dictum, he removed a slab of cake from a

near-by plate, steered it through the jungle, and began to champ.

It is too much to say that there was a dead silence. There could never

be that in any room in which Vladimir Brusiloff was eating cake. But

certainly what you might call the general chit-chat was pretty well