Vile Bodies

of a dinner party given in Elm Park Gardens by the widow of a High Commissioner to some of the friends she had made in their colony. There were details of the blameless home life of women novelists, photographed with their spaniels before rose-covered cottages; stories of undergraduate “rags” and regimental reunion dinners; anecdotes from Harley Street and the Inns of Court; snaps and snippets about cocktail parties given in basement flats by spotty announcers at the B.B.C., of tea dances in Gloucester Terrace and jokes made at High Table by dons.

Urged on by the taunts of the social editress, Adam brought new enterprise and humanity into this sorry column. He started a series of “Notable Invalids,” which was from the first, wildly successful. He began chattily. “At a dinner party the other evening my neighbour and I began to compile a list of the most popular deaf peeresses. First, of course, came old Lady ⸻⁠ ⁠…”

Next day he followed it up with a page about deaf peers and statesmen; then about the one-legged, blind and bald. Postcards of appreciation poured in from all over the country.

“I have read your column for many years now,” wrote a correspondent from Bude, “but this is the first time I have really enjoyed it. I have myself been deaf for a long time, and it is a great comfort to me to know that my affliction is shared by so many famous men and women. Thank you, Mr. Chatterbox, and good luck to you.”

Another wrote: “Ever since childhood I have been cursed with abnormally large ears which have been a source of ridicule to me and a serious handicap in my career (I am a chub fuddler). I should be so glad to know whether any great people have suffered in the same way.”

Finally, he ransacked the lunatic asylums and mental houses of the country, and for nearly a week ran an extremely popular series under the heading “Titled Eccentrics.”

“It is not generally known that the Earl of ⸻, who lives in strict retirement, has the unusual foible of wearing costume of the Napoleonic Period. So great, indeed, is his detestation of modern dress that on one occasion⁠ ⁠…”

“Lord ⸻, whose public appearances are regrettably rare nowadays, is a close student of comparative religions. There is an amusing story of how, when lunching with the then Dean of Westminster, Lord ⸻ startled his host by proclaiming that so far from being of divine ordinance, the Ten Commandments were, in point of fact, composed by himself and delivered by him to Moses on Sinai.⁠ ⁠…”

“Lady ⸻, whose imitations of animal sounds are so lifelike that she can seldom be persuaded to converse in any other way,⁠ ⁠…”

And so on.

Besides this, arguing that people did not really mind whom they read about provided that a kind of vicarious inquisitiveness into the lives of others was satisfied, Adam began to invent people.

He invented a sculptor called Provna, the son of a Polish nobleman, who lived in a top-floor studio in Grosvenor House. Most of his work (which was all in private hands) was constructed in cork, vulcanite and steel. The Metropolitan Museum at New York, Mr. Chatterbox learned, had been negotiating for some time to purchase a specimen, but so far had been unable to outbid the collectors.

Such is the power of the Press, that soon after this a steady output of early Provnas began to travel from Warsaw to Bond Street and from Bond Street to California, while Mrs. Hoop announced to her friends that Provna was at the moment at work on a bust of Johnny, which she intended to present to the nation (a statement which Adam was unable to record owing to the presence of Mrs. Hoop’s name on the black list, but which duly appeared, under a photograph of Johnny, in the Marquess of Vanburgh’s rival column).

Encouraged by his success, Adam began gradually to introduce to his readers a brilliant and lovely company. He mentioned them casually at first in lists of genuine people. There was a popular young attaché at the Italian Embassy called Count Cincinnati. He was descended from the famous Roman Consul, Cincinnatus, and bore a plough as his crest. Count Cincinnati was held to be the best amateur cellist in London. Adam saw him one evening dancing at the Café de la Paix. A few evenings later Lord Vanburgh noticed him at Covent Garden, remarking that his collection of the original designs for the Russian ballet was unequalled in Europe. Two days later Adam sent him to Monte Carlo for a few days’ rest, and Vanburgh hinted that there was more in this visit than met the eye, and mentioned the daughter of a well-known American hostess who was staying there at her aunt’s villa.

There was a Captain Angus Stuart-Kerr, too, whose rare appearances in England were a delight to his friends; unlike most big-game hunters, he was an expert and indefatigable dancer. Much to Adam’s disgust he found Captain Stuart-Kerr taken up by an unknown gossip writer in a twopenny, illustrated weekly, who saw him at a point-to-point meeting, and remarked that he was well known as the hardest rider in the Hebrides. Adam put a stop to that next day.

“Some people,” he wrote, “are under the impression that Captain Angus Stuart-Kerr, whom I mentioned on this page a short time ago, is a keen rider. Perhaps they are confusing him with Alastair Kerr-Stuart, of Inverauchty, a very distant cousin. Captain Stuart-Kerr never rides, and for a very interesting reason. There is an old Gaelic rhyme repeated among his clansmen which says in rough translation ‘the Laird rides well on two legs.’ Tradition has it that when the head of the house mounts a horse the clan will be dispersed.”3

But Adam’s most important creation was Mrs. Andrew Quest. There was always some difficulty about introducing English people into his column as his readers had a way of verifying his references in Debrett (as he knew to