I
Hinde's enthusiastic review of _The Enchanted Lover_ had not been
followed by other reviews equally enthusiastic or nearly so. Many
papers failed to do more than include it in the List of Books Received.
_The Times Literary Supplement_ gave six lines of small type to a
cold account of it. The reviewer declared that "this first novel is not
without merit" but either had not been able to discover the merit or
had not enough space in which to describe it, for he omitted to say
what it was. John had paid a visit to the local lending library every
morning for a week in order that he might see all the London newspapers
and such of the provincial papers as were exhibited, and had searched
their columns eagerly for references to his book; but the references
were few and slight. Mr. Claude Jannissary, when John visited him,
wagged his head dolefully and uttered some mournful remarks on the sad
state of idealism in England. He regretted to say that the book was not
selling so well as he had hoped it would sell. The appalling conditions
of the publishing trade were accentuated by the extraordinary
reluctance of the booksellers to take risks or to show any enthusiasm
for new things. Between Mr. Jannissary and John, he might say that
booksellers were a very unsatisfactory lot. Most of them were quite
uncultured men. Hardly any of them read books. Mr. Jannissary longed
for the day when booksellers would look upon their shops as places of
adventure and romance!...
A curious sensation of distaste for these words passed through John
when he heard them spoken by Mr. Jannissary. The booksellers, said the
publishers, should be ambitious to earn the title of the new
Elizabethans ... hungering and thirsting after dangerous experiences.
He would like to see a bookseller turning disdainfully from "best
sellers" and eagerly purchasing large quantities of books by unknown
authors. "Think of the thrill of it," said Mr. Jannissary; and John,
perturbed in his mind, tried hard to think of the thrill of it. His
mental perturbation was due to the lean look of his bank balance. Money
was going out of his house more rapidly than it was coming in, and
Eleanor had been full of anxiety that morning. He had not yet received
a cheque from the Cottenham Repertory Theatre for the royalties due on
the week's performance of _Milchu and St. Patrick_, but he had
soothed Eleanor's fears by assuring her that there would be the better
part of a hundred pounds to come to them from Cottenham in a few days.
In the meantime, he told her, he would call on Jannissary and see
whether he could not obtain some money from him. "He must have sold
much more than five hundred copies by this time," he said. "If all the
bookshops in the country only took one copy each, he'd have sold more
than five hundred, and I'm sure they'd all take two or three each.
Perhaps more!"
The suggestion that he might make a small advance to John on account
of accrued royalties had a very chilling effect upon Mr. Jannissary.
"My dear fellow," he said, putting up his hands in a benedictory
manner and then dropping them as if to say that even he found difficulty
in believing in the nobility of man, "impossible! Absolutely impossible!
I've sunk ... Money ... much Money ... in your book ... I don't regret
it ... not for a moment ... I believe in you, MacDermott ... strongly
... but it will be a long time before I recover any of that ... Money
... if I ever recover it. I'm sorry!..."
John had come away from the publisher in a cheerless state of mind, and
as he turned into the Strand, he collided with Hinde.
"How's the book getting on?" Hinde demanded when they had greeted each
other.
John told him of what Jannissary had said.
"I tell you what I'll do." said Hinde. "I'll work up a boom for it in
the _Evening Herald_. I'll turn one of my chaps on to writing half
a dozen letters to the Editor about it!..."
"But you don't like the book," John expostulated. "You told me it
wasn't much good!"
"Och, I know that," Hinde replied, "but that doesn't matter. I'd like
to do you a good turn. There's a smart chap working for me now ... he
can put more superlatives into a paragraph than any other man in Fleet
Street, and he isn't afraid of committing himself to anything. Most
useful fellow to have on your staff. He does our Literary article, and
he's discovered a fresh genius every week since he came to me. He'll
get on, that chap! I'll turn him on to your book!"
"I don't want praise that I don't deserve," John said, thrusting out
his lower lip.
"Oh, you'll deserve it all right. Everybody deserves some praise. How's
Eleanor?"
"All right!"
Then Hinde hurried away, and John went home. There was a letter from
the Cottenham Repertory Theatre awaiting him, and he eagerly opened the
envelope.
"You needn't worry any longer," he said to Eleanor as he took out the
contents of the envelope....
He gaped at the cheque and the Returns Sheet.
"How much is it?" Eleanor asked.
"There must be a mistake!..."
"How much is it?" she repeated.
"Sixteen pounds, nine shillings and sevenpence! But!..."