I have often felt a little sorry for writers like Cicero or Diogenes Laertius or, for the matter of that Pliny the Elder, who operated in the days before the post-office came into existence. They could never tell for certain when they had pushed their stuff across and made a solid hit with the great public. For, as everybody knows, an author's success can be estimated by the number of letters he receives from readers. It is the acid test.

Pliny, of course, had a few old school friends who thought he was a wonder—or, at any rate, told him so when they had made quite sure that he was going to pay for the last round of Falernian wine: and sometimes a kindly Senator would pat Cicero on the shoulder in the Campus Martius and say "Stick at it, boy. You're doing fine!" But, looking at the thing in a broad way, they were simply working in the dark, and it must have been discouraging for them.

There is no point on which your modern author is more touchy than this business of testimonials from the public. You will see Galsworthy stroll up to Kipling in the club and yawn with an ill-assumed carelessness.

"You don't happen to know of a good secretary, do you, Rud?" he says. "I have been caught short, confound it. Mine has just got typist's cramp, answering letters from admirers of my books, and more pouring in by every post."

"John," says Kipling, "you know me. If I could help you, I would do it like a shot. But I'm in just the same fix myself. Both my secretaries collapsed this morning and are in the hospital with ice-packs on their heads. I've never known the fan-mail heavier."

"Look here," says Galsworthy abruptly, "How many fan-letters did you get last week?"

"How many did you?" says Kipling.

"I asked you first," says Galsworthy, and they part on bad terms.

And, over in a corner, Arnold Bennett rising and walking away in a marked manner from H. G. Wells.

As far as I, personally, am concerned, if I am to submit to this test, I should describe myself as a sort of fair-to-medium,—not, on the one hand, a definite warn and yet not, on the other, a total bust. Something about halfway in between. The books which I write seem to appeal to a rather specialized public. Invalids like me. So do convicts. And I am all right with the dog-stealers. As regards Obuasie, I am not so sure.

From Obuasie (wherever that is) there arrived a short while ago the following letter, rather flatteringly addressed to "P. G. Wodehouse, England":—

Dear Sir,

I have heard your name and address highly have been recommended to me by a certain friend of mine that you are the best merchant in your city London. So I want you to send me one of your best catalogue and I am ready to deal with you until I shall go into the grave.

Soon as possible send me early I remain, yours very good trully

Now, it is difficult to know just what to make of a letter like that. At first glance, of course, it would seem as if I had clicked in Obuasie on rather an impressive scale. But there is also the possibility that some mistake or confusion has arisen. If I get my publishers to flood Obuasie with my books, will they command a ready sale, or is Obuasie under the impression that I deal in something quite different from veritable masterpieces of absorbing fiction? Misunderstandings so easily occur at a distance. You remember the story of the traveller in cement docks, who would often rush halfway across the world on hearing that there was a demand for his wares in Pernambuco or Spitzbergen, only to discover, after he had dragged his bag of samples all that weary way, that what the natives really wanted was not docks but socks.

Better, perhaps, to stick to the invalids and convicts who, with the dog-stealers, surely make up a public quite large enough for any author who is not utterly obsessed by the lust for gold.

My popularity with invalids puts me in something of a quandary. Naturally, I like my stories to be read as widely as possible: but, kind-hearted by nature, I do not feel altogether happy when I think that some form of wasting sickness is an essential preliminary to their perusal. And such seems to be the case.

I can understand it, of course. You know how it is. When you are fit and strong and full of yeast and all that sort of thing, you go about with your chin up and your chest out, without a single morbid tendency. "I feel great! " you say. "So why should I deliberately take the sunshine out of life by reading Wodehouse?" And you don't.

So far, so good. But comes a day when the old temperature begins to mount, the tonsils to ache and dark spots to float before the eyes. Then, somehow or other, you find one of my books by your bedside, and a week later you are writing me to the following effect:—

Dear Sir,

I have never read anything of yours before, as I have always enjoyed robust health from a boy. But recently, owing to drinking unfiltered water, I became covered with pink spots and my brain-power was temporarily affected. A friend lent me your latest story, and I read it with great enjoyment. Kindly send me your photograph and autographed copies of all your other books.

Thanking you in anticipation I remain, yours truly

You see the dilemma this places me in? On the one hand, I am rejoiced that the sufferer is now convalescent. On the other, I feel that until he contracts some other ailment I have lost a reader.

But, you will say, why bother about the invalids if the heart of the dog-stealers remains sound? And here I am faced by a somewhat embarrassing confession. When I said I was read by dog-stealers, I was swanking. It is not dog-stealers who enjoy my work, but a (one) solitary dog-stealer and—a galling thought—a rotten dog-stealer, at that, for he specifically admits to having been arrested. And, further, his motives in writing to me are mixed. It was not simply a clean, flamelike admiration for a great artist that caused him to take pen in hand, but also a desire to know whether I would give him a sum of money sufficient to enable him to start a street bookmaker's business. In fact, the more I think over this letter, the less confident do I feel that the man is going to be anything in the nature of a steady income to me down the years.

Moreover he is a London dog-stealer, and in English prisons they tend to give the inmates nothing to read but things like the first volume of Waverley and Marvels of Pond Life. My convict public is entirely American. I have had so many letters recently from American penitentiaries that I am beginning to think that the American criminal must look on one or more of my works as an essential part of his kit.

I seem to see the burglar's mother send him off for the night shift.

"Another cup of cocoa, Clarence?"

"No, thank you, mother. I must be off."

"Yes, it is getting late. Are you well wrapped up?"

"Yes, mother."

"Wearing your warm underclothing?"

"Yes, mother."

"Have you everything you need? Revolver, Brass knucks? Oxy-acetylene blow-pipe? Wodehouse novel? Black-jack? Skeleton keys? Mask?"

"Yes, mother."

"Then Heaven speed you, boy, and always remember what your dear father used to say,—Tread lightly, read your Wodehouse, and don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."

Yes, I go like a breeze in the prisons of America: and, as I say, I am much read by those whose minds have been temporarily unhinged by physical suffering. And yet, at the risk of seeming ungracious, I must own that I am not entirely satisfied. Apart from the uncomfortable thought that the study of my books may be a part of an American prison-sentence, I cannot restrain a wistful yearning for a few readers of sound health who do not belong to the criminal classes. It is nice, of course, to be looked on as a valuable counter-irritant in cases of mumps, measles or tertiary fever. And it is pleasant to feel that the tedium of drilling a safe has been mitigated for many a conscientious workman by an occasional glance at a story of mine.

Nevertheless, I do have this yearning, and I am taking advantage of the fact that the editor of this periodical has offered me the hospitality of his columns to try to interest a few blameless and robust persons in my books.

I thought I had found one the other day. She sat next to me at dinner, one of those delightful, intelligent old ladies from whom the years have not taken their keenness of mind and their ability to spot a good man when they see one.

"This is a great moment for me," she said. "I can't tell you how proud I am. I think I have read everything you have ever written."

I looked at her closely. Her features were not worn with suffering. If there had been an Old Ladies Marathon event at the Olympic Games, I would have expected to see her win it in a canter.

"Had much sickness in your family lately?" I asked, to make sure.

"None," she said. "We are an extraordinarily healthy family. We all love your books. My eldest son reads nothing else. He is in America now."

This sounded suspicious.

"Joliet?" I said. "Or Sing-Sing?"

"He is at the Embassy in Washington."

"Has he been pretty fit lately?"

"He is never ill."

"And he reads my books?"

"Every one of them. And so do my grandsons. The table in their room is piled with them. And when I go home tonight," she added, "and tell them that I have actually been sitting at dinner next to Edgar Wallace, I don't know what they will say!"