Preston Telegraph."

was the only lure offered in advertisements by Soames's publisher. I had
hoped that when next I met the poet I could congratulate him on having
made a stir, for I fancied he was not so sure of his intrinsic greatness as
he seemed. I was but able to say, rather coarsely, when next I did see
him, that I hoped "Fungoids" was "selling splendidly." He looked at me
across his glass of absinthe and asked if I had bought a copy. His
publisher had told him that three had been sold. I laughed, as at a jest.

"You don't suppose I CARE, do you?" he said, with
something like a snarl. I disclaimed the notion. He added that he was
not a tradesman. I said mildly that I wasn't, either, and murmured that an
artist who gave truly new and great things to the world had always to
wait long for recognition. He said he cared not a sou for recognition. I
agreed that the act of creation was its own reward.

His moroseness might have alienated me if I had regarded myself as
a nobody. But ah! hadn't both John Lane and Aubrey Beardsley
suggested that I should write an essay for the great new venture
that was afoot--"The Yellow Book"? And hadn't Henry Harland, as
editor, accepted my essay? And wasn't it to be in the very first number?
At Oxford I was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded
myself as very much indeed a graduate now--one whom no Soames could
ruffle. Partly to show off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he
ought to contribute to "The Yellow Book." He uttered from the throat a
sound of scorn for that publication.

Nevertheless, I did, a day or two later, tentatively ask Harland if he
knew anything of the work of a man called Enoch Soames. Harland