V

THE MARTYR

[_To H.G. WELLS_]


I, myself, have always liked Delancey Woburn. To begin with, there is
something so endearing about the way he displays his defects, never
hiding them or tidying them away or covering them up. There they are for
all the world to see, a reassuring shop window full of frank
shortcomings. Besides, I never can resist triumphant vitality. Delancey
is overflowing with joie de vivre, with curiosity, with a certainty of
imminent adventure. If you say to him, "I saw a policeman," his face
lights up and so it would if you said "I saw a dog," or a cat, or a
donkey-cart. To him policemen and dogs and cats and donkey-carts are
always just about to do something dramatic or absurd or unexpected. Nor
is he discouraged by unfailing regularity in their behaviour. Faith is
"the evidence of things not seen."

And then, too, he is so very welcoming. Not, of course, that he makes
you feel you are the only person in the world because a world with only
one other person in it would be inconceivably horrible to him, but he
does make you quite sure that he is most frightfully glad to see
you--all the gladder because it is such a surprise. Delancey always
makes a point of being surprised. Also, though he is invariably in a
hurry--being in a hurry is one of the tributes he pays to life--he as
invariably turns round and walks with you, in your direction, to
convince himself that having met you in Jermyn Street is an altogether