AN UNFINISHED COLLECTION


A silence had fallen upon the smoking room. The warrior just back from
the front had enquired after George Vanderpoop, and we, who knew that
George's gentle spirit had, to use a metaphor after his own heart,
long since been withdrawn from circulation, were feeling uncomfortable
and wondering how to break the news.

Smithson is our specialist in tact, and we looked to him to be
spokesman.

"George," said Smithson at last, "the late George Vanderpoop----"

"Late!" exclaimed the warrior; "is he dead?"

"As a doornail," replied Smithson sadly. "Perhaps you would care to
hear the story. It is sad, but interesting. You may recollect that,
when you sailed, he was starting his journalistic career. For a young
writer he had done remarkably well. The _Daily Telephone_ had
printed two of his contributions to their correspondence column, and a
bright pen picture of his, describing how Lee's Lozenges for the Liver
had snatched him from almost certain death, had quite a vogue. Lee, I
believe, actually commissioned him to do a series on the subject."

"Well?" said the warrior.

"Well, he was, as I say, prospering very fairly, when in an unlucky
moment he began to make a collection of editorial rejection forms. He
had always been a somewhat easy prey to scourges of that description.