Life — December 1, 1921 — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

How It Is Done A. P. ADY VICTORIA GUSH sat in her boudoir, among her bills, collecting her thoughts. An hour passed. She had collected one thought. Bills. Another hour passed. Her eye fell lovingly upon her little library. She gazed profoundly at the volumes, both brightly bound. An expression passed over her face. She had collected another thought. Books. She rang up Messrs. Mucke-Raike & Wallow, the pub- lishers. Mr. Mucke-Raike himself answered the call. “Lady Victoria Gush speaking,” she said. “Will you publish a book for me, please?” She had a very sweet tele- phone voice. “Certainly,” said Mr. Mucke-Raike. “Is it a novel?” “T don’t know yet. How much do I get for a novel?” “About eightpence a copy.” “What does that come to?” “Oh, it varies—I’ve known many a young man to make as much as forty pounds out of a single novel.” “Oh!” There was a pause. Then “I don’t think it’s a novel,” she said. “I think it’s reminiscences.” Mr. Mucke-Raike gave a loud neigh of pleasure. “That's capital,” he neighed. “I'll give you an advance of a thou- sand pounds and a royalty of forty per cent. on the first thirty thousand copies, sixty per cent. after. You'll make twenty thousand out of the book, fifty thousand out of the Sunday Slime and a hundred thousand out of America. Send your MS. round at once.” “You're very kind,” said Lady Victoria, gratified. “How xactly does one write books?” Oh, that’s easy. —how “TIsn’t it written, then? Green to you. Good-bye.” A little later Miss Green entered the boudoir, a resolute lady of uncertain age, with a face like a rather fierce horse. She carried fourteen pencils, five quires of foolscap, and no erasers. “Now, then,” she said, with a threatening look, “what is the first thing you remember?” “I don’t remember anything very much,” said Lady Vic- toria Gush, “Do you remember a strange man who used to talk to your nursemaid while she was wheeling the pram?” “Yes,” said the authoress feebly. “Who was he?” “T don’t know.” “Was it Sir Stafford Northcote?” “T don’t know.” “Was it Lord Beaconsfield?” “T dare say.” “It was.” Miss Green took her largest pencil and wrote rapidly. “But I seem to remember that he wore some sort of uni- form—” Lady Victoria began. “Be quiet!” Miss Green wrote much more rapidly. She wrote— T’ll send Miss “Ah, that Flower Walk—what secrets it could tell! Who, for example, was the tall, bearded man who used to hang over Dora, my little nursemaid, with soft en- dearments so many mornings? Probably the secret will never now be revealed, but it is significant that shortly after the death of the great Jew who governed England so long, little Dora left my mother’s service and bought The White Cat at Surbiton, “Dora was not the only nursemaid who caught the eye Herbert of the great in those days. Indeed, on one occasion, I remember it was found necessary to hold an urgent Cabinet Meeting in one of the Park keepers’ huts near the Round Pond, so many of the Government were dallying with the fair in that neighbourhood. And thereby hangs a tale.” Miss Green read it out. Lady Victoria fanned herself. “Did I say that?” she said weakly. hang by it?” “You can leave that to me,” said Miss Green very firmly. “Now, what else do you remember?” Lady Victoria Gush thought for a long time. happened. “This won't do,” said Miss Green. “What tale docs Nothing “At this rate we “Did I ever say that Mr, Balfour eats peas with a knife?” comicbooks.com