Cakes and Ale

way of putting a spoke in the wheel of someone whose rivalry you do. But this is to take a low view of human nature and I would not for the world lay myself open to a charge of cheap cynicism. After mature consideration I have come to the conclusion that the real reason for the universal applause that comforts the declining years of the author who exceeds the common span of man is that intelligent people after the age of thirty read nothing at all. As they grow older the books they read in their youth are lit with its glamour and with every year that passes they ascribe greater merit to the author that wrote them. Of course he must go on; he must keep in the public eye. It is no good his thinking that it is enough to write one or two masterpieces; he must provide a pedestal for them of forty or fifty works of no particular consequence. This needs time. His production must be such that if he cannot captivate a reader by his charm he can stun him by his weight.

If, as I think, longevity is genius, few in our time have enjoyed it in a more conspicuous degree than Edward Driffield. When he was a young fellow in the sixties (the cultured having had their way with him and passed him by) his position in the world of letters was only respectable; the best judges praised him, but with moderation; the younger men were inclined to be frivolous at his expense. It was agreed that he had talent, but it never occurred to anyone that he was one of the glories of English literature. He celebrated his seventieth birthday; an uneasiness passed over the world of letters, like a ruffling of the waters when on an Eastern sea a typhoon lurks in the distance, and it grew evident that there had lived among us all these years a great novelist and none of us had suspected it. There was a rush for Driffield’s book in the various libraries and a hundred busy pens, in Bloomsbury, in Chelsea, and in other places where men of letters congregate, wrote appreciations, studies, essays, and works, short and chatty or long and intense, on his novels. These were reprinted, in complete editions, in select editions, at a shilling and three and six and five shillings and a guinea. His style was analyzed, his philosophy was examined, his technique was dissected. At seventy-five everyone agreed that Edward Driffield had genius. At eighty he was the Grand Old Man of English Letters. This position he held till his death.

Now we look about and think sadly that there is no one to take his place. A few septuagenarians are sitting up and taking notice, and they evidently feel that they could comfortably fill the vacant niche. But it is obvious that they lack something.

Though these recollections have taken so long to narrate they took but a little while to pass through my head. They came to me higgledy-piggledy, an incident and then a scrap of conversation that belonged to a previous time, and I have set them down in order for the convenience of the reader and because I have a neat mind. One thing that surprised me was that even at that far distance I could remember distinctly what people looked like and even the gist of what they said, but only with vagueness what they wore. I knew of course that the dress, especially of women, was quite different forty years ago from what it was now, but if I recalled it at all it was not from life but from pictures and photographs that I had seen much later.

I was still occupied with my idle fancies when I heard a taxi stop at the door, the bell ring, and in a moment Alroy Kear’s booming voice telling the butler that he had an appointment with me. He came in, big, bluff, and hearty; his vitality shattered with a single gesture the frail construction I had been building out of the vanished past. He brought in with him, like a blustering wind in March, the aggressive and inescapable present.

“I was just asking myself,” I said, “who could possibly succeed Edward Driffield as the Grand Old Man of English Letters and you arrive to answer my question.”

He broke into a jovial laugh, but into his eyes came a quick look of suspicion.

“I don’t think there’s anybody,” he said.

“How about yourself?”

“Oh, my dear boy, I’m not fifty yet. Give me another twenty-five years.” He laughed, but his eyes held mine keenly. “I never know when you’re pulling my leg.” He looked down suddenly. “Of course one can’t help thinking about the future sometimes. All the people who are at the top of the tree now are anything from fifteen to twenty years older than me. They can’t last forever, and when they’re gone who is there? Of course there’s Aldous; he’s a good deal younger than me, but he’s not very strong and I don’t believe he takes great care of himself. Barring accidents, by which I mean barring some genius who suddenly springs up and sweeps the board, I don’t quite see how in another twenty or twenty-five years I can help having the field pretty well to myself. It’s just a question of pegging away and living on longer than the others.”

Roy sank his virile bulk into one of my landlady’s armchairs and I offered him a whisky and soda.

“No, I never drink spirits before six o’clock,” he said. He looked about him. “Jolly, these digs are.”

“I know. What have you come to see me about?”

“I thought I’d better have a little chat with you about Mrs. Driffield’s invitation. It was rather difficult to explain over the telephone. The truth of the matter is that I’ve arranged to write Driffield’s life.”

“Oh! Why didn’t you tell me the other day?”

I felt friendly disposed toward Roy. I was happy