"You mean _I_ am--for I ought to get round that."

"You CAN'T--with such people. Who are they?"

I told him, as far as was necessary, and he declared, heartlessly:
"Ce sont des gens qu'il faut mettre a la porte."

"You've never seen them; they're awfully good," I compassionately
objected.

"Not seen them? Why, all this recent work of yours drops to pieces
with them. It's all I want to see of them."

"No one else has said anything against it--the Cheapside people are
pleased."

"Everyone else is an ass, and the Cheapside people the biggest asses
of all. Come, don't pretend, at this time of day, to have pretty
illusions about the public, especially about publishers and editors.
It's not for SUCH animals you work--it's for those who know, coloro
che sanno; so keep straight for ME if you can't keep straight for
yourself. There's a certain sort of thing you tried for from the
first--and a very good thing it is. But this twaddle isn't IN it."
When I talked with Hawley later about "Rutland Ramsay" and its
possible successors he declared that I must get back into my boat
again or I would go to the bottom. His voice in short was the voice
of warning.

I noted the warning, but I didn't turn my friends out of doors. They