travel books: authority; for how little the apple-tree knows (or cares) of the processes it went through to produce the apple; how little it knows of the apple after it is grown. Raglan introduced other writers to the world; apologized for them, classified them, analysed them, collated them, cross-indexed them, rinsed them, put them through the mangle, and hung them up to dry. When he wrote of Thomas Dekker or Nicholas Breton or George Colman the younger, you felt that three more celebrities, Dekker, Breton and Colman, had now written about Raglan; that he was by that the more famous. The announcement of his edition of Hudibras as `probably Ambrose Raglan's masterpiece' left open the possibility that Butler might have written it after all, but summed up the position very fairly. You felt that if Butler were alive, he would say, `After you, my dear fellow,' as they joined the ladies. Nobody had heard of Butler but had heard of Raglan; thousands had heard of Raglan who had never heard of Butler. Whether it would be so in three hundred years' time was not yet known. Ormsby owned newspapers and racehorses. By virtue of the former he was `Robert, first Baron Ormsby', by virtue of the latter he was `good old Bob'. He had a nose like a small button, stiff upstanding hair, a thick neck and a cleft in his chin. There was no vulgarity, no indecency, no treachery too low for his papers, but since business is business, and he had won the Derby, and smoked habitually a cigar so long that the indication of it in a cartoon was enough to identify the owner, he was a national figure, and therefore, in himself, a model of English respectability. But on one point, poor fellow, he was queer. He had this odd fancy for books. He had asked Raglan to come and see him. Raglan came. Doubtless Ormsby was starting a new literary books

Books > Old Books > Two People (1932)

Page 54

CHAPTER FOUR

authority; for how little the apple-tree knows (or cares) of the processes it went through to produce the apple; how little it knows of the apple after it is grown. Raglan introduced other writers to the world; apologized for them, classified them, analysed them, collated them, cross-indexed them, rinsed them, put them through the mangle, and hung them up to dry. When he wrote of Thomas Dekker or Nicholas Breton or George Colman the younger, you felt that three more celebrities, Dekker, Breton and Colman, had now written about Raglan; that he was by that the more famous. The announcement of his edition of Hudibras as `probably Ambrose Raglan's masterpiece' left open the possibility that Butler might have written it after all, but summed up the position very fairly. You felt that if Butler were alive, he would say, `After you, my dear fellow,' as they joined the ladies. Nobody had heard of Butler but had heard of Raglan; thousands had heard of Raglan who had never heard of Butler. Whether it would be so in three hundred years' time was not yet known.
Ormsby owned newspapers and racehorses. By virtue of the former he was `Robert, first Baron Ormsby', by virtue of the latter he was `good old Bob'. He had a nose like a small button, stiff upstanding hair, a thick neck and a cleft in his chin. There was no vulgarity, no indecency, no treachery too low for his papers, but since business is business, and he had won the Derby, and smoked habitually a cigar so long that the indication of it in a cartoon was enough to identify the owner, he was a national figure, and therefore, in himself, a model of English respectability. But on one point, poor fellow, he was queer. He had this odd fancy for books.
He had asked Raglan to come and see him. Raglan came. Doubtless Ormsby was starting a new literary