The Clicking of Cuthbert | Page 5

be? No, Aunt Emily met his
manager after his lecture at Queen's Hall yesterday, and he has
promised that Mr. Brusiloff shall come to her next Wednesday
reception."
"Oh, ah!" said Cuthbert, dully.
"I don't know how she managed it. I think she must have told him that
Mr. Devine would be there to meet him."

"But you said he was coming," argued Cuthbert.
"I shall be very glad," said Raymond Devine, "of the opportunity of
meeting Brusiloff."
"I'm sure," said Adeline, "he will be very glad of the opportunity of
meeting you."
"Possibly," said Mr. Devine. "Possibly. Competent critics have said
that my work closely resembles that of the great Russian Masters."
"Your psychology is so deep."
"Yes, yes."
"And your atmosphere."
"Quite."
Cuthbert in a perfect agony of spirit prepared to withdraw from this
love-feast. The sun was shining brightly, but the world was black to
him. Birds sang in the tree-tops, but he did not hear them. He might
have been a moujik for all the pleasure he found in life.
"You will be there, Mr. Banks?" said Adeline, as he turned away.
"Oh, all right," said Cuthbert.
When Cuthbert had entered the drawing-room on the following
Wednesday and had taken his usual place in a distant corner where,
while able to feast his gaze on Adeline, he had a sporting chance of
being overlooked or mistaken for a piece of furniture, he perceived the
great Russian thinker seated in the midst of a circle of admiring females.
Raymond Parsloe Devine had not yet arrived.
His first glance at the novelist surprised Cuthbert. Doubtless with the
best motives, Vladimir Brusiloff had permitted his face to become
almost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair, but his eyes
were visible through the undergrowth, and it seemed to Cuthbert that

there was an expression in them not unlike that of a cat in a strange
backyard surrounded by small boys. The man looked forlorn and
hopeless, and Cuthbert wondered whether he had had bad news from
home.
This was not the case. The latest news which Vladimir Brusiloff had
had from Russia had been particularly cheering. Three of his principal
creditors had perished in the last massacre of the bourgeoisie, and a
man whom he owed for five years for a samovar and a pair of
overshoes had fled the country, and had not been heard of since. It was
not bad news from home that was depressing Vladimir. What was
wrong with him was the fact that this was the eighty-second suburban
literary reception he had been compelled to attend since he had landed
in the country on his lecturing tour, and he was sick to death of it.
When his agent had first suggested the trip, he had signed on the dotted
line without an instant's hesitation. Worked out in roubles, the fees
offered had seemed just about right. But now, as he peered through the
brushwood at the faces round him, and realized that eight out of ten of
those present had manuscripts of some sort concealed on their persons,
and were only waiting for an opportunity to whip them out and start
reading, he wished that he had stayed at his quiet home in
Nijni-Novgorod, where the worst thing that could happen to a fellow
was a brace of bombs coming in through the window and mixing
themselves up with his breakfast egg.
At this point in his meditations he was aware that his hostess was
looming up before him with a pale young man in horn-rimmed
spectacles at her side. There was in Mrs. Smethurst's demeanour
something of the unction of the master-of-ceremonies at the big fight
who introduces the earnest gentleman who wishes to challenge the
winner.
"Oh, Mr. Brusiloff," said Mrs. Smethurst, "I do so want you to meet Mr.
Raymond Parsloe Devine, whose work I expect you know. He is one of
our younger novelists."
The distinguished visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner
through the shrubbery, but did not speak. Inwardly he was thinking

how exactly like Mr. Devine was to the eighty-one other younger
novelists to whom he had been introduced at various hamlets
throughout the country. Raymond Parsloe Devine bowed courteously,
while Cuthbert, wedged into his corner, glowered at him.
"The critics," said Mr. Devine, "have been kind enough to say that my
poor efforts contain a good deal of the Russian spirit. I owe much to the
great Russians. I have been greatly influenced by Sovietski."
Down in the forest something stirred. It was Vladimir Brusiloff's mouth
opening, as he prepared to speak. He was not a man who prattled
readily, especially in a foreign tongue. He gave the impression that
each word was excavated from his interior by some up-to-date process
of mining. He glared bleakly at