book.  Some of the younger critics, who still retained an interest in their own personalities, discovered that its vacuity made it a convenient mirror by means of which they would display the progress of their own genius.  In common gratitude they had to close these manifestations of their merit with a word or two in praise of the book they were professing to review.  “The Improbable Marquis” was very favourably received by the Press in general.

It was, as the publisher made haste to point out in his advertisements, a book of the year, and, reassured by its flippant exterior, the libraries and the public bought it with avidity.  The author pasted his swollen collection of newspaper-cuttings into an album, and carefully revised his novel in case a second edition should be called for.  There was one review which he had read more often than any of the others, and nevertheless he hesitated to include it in his collection.  “This book,” wrote the anonymous reviewer, “is as nearly faultless a book may be that possesses no positive merit.  It differs only from seven-eighths of the novels that are produced today in being more carefully written.  The author had nothing to say, and he has said it.”  That was all, three malignant lines in a paper of no commercial importance, the sort of thing that was passed round the publisher’s office with an appreciative chuckle.  In the face of the general amiability of the Press, such a notice in an obscure journal could do the book no harm.

Only the author sat hour after hour in his study with that diminutive scrap of paper before him on the table, and wondered if it was true.

IV.  Fame

It was some little time before the public, the mysterious section of the public that reads works of fiction, discovered that the publisher, aided by the normal good-humour of the critics, had persuaded them to sacrifice some of their scant hours of intellectual recreation on a work of portentous dullness.  Therefor the literary audience has its sense of humour—­they amused themselves for a while by recommending the book to their friends, and the sales crept steadily up to four thousand, and there stayed with an unmistakable air of finality.  If the book had had any real literary merit its life would have started at that point, for the weary comments of reviewers and the strident outcries of publishers tend to obscure rather than reveal the permanent value of a book.  But six months after publication “The Improbable Marquis” was completely forgotten, save by the second-hand booksellers, who found themselves embarrassed with a number of books for which no one seemed anxious to pay six-pence, in spite of the striking heliotrope binding.  The publisher, who was aware of this circumstance, offered the author five hundred copies at cost price, and the author bought them, and sent them to public libraries, without examining the motive for his action too closely.  There were moments when he regarded the success of his book with suspicion.