But as she said it she met the sharp and shrewd eyes of Mr. Potter, and
knew that he knew she was referring to the Anti-Potter League.


5

Mr. Potter would not, indeed, have been worthy of his reputation had he
not been aware, from its inception, of the existence of this League.
Journalists have to be aware of such things. He in no way resented the
League; he brushed it aside as of no account. And, indeed, it was not
aimed at him personally, nor at his wife personally, but at the great
mass of thought--or of incoherent, muddled emotion that passed for
thought--which the Anti-Potters had agreed, for brevity's sake, to call
'Potterism.' Potterism had very certainly not been created by the
Potters, and was indeed no better represented by the goods with which
they supplied the market than by those of many others; but it was a handy
name, and it had taken the public fancy that here you had two Potters
linked together, two souls nobly yoked, one supplying Potterism in
fictional, the other in newspaper, form. So the name caught, about the
year 1912.

The twins both heard it used at Oxford, in their second year. They
recognised its meaning without being told. And both felt that it was up
to them to take the opportunity of testifying, of severing any connection
that might yet exist in any one's mind between them and the other
products of their parents. They did so, with the uncompromising decision
proper to their years, and with, perhaps, the touch of indecency,
regardlessness of the proprieties, which was characteristic of them.
Their friends soon discovered that they need not guard their tongues in