A few weeks later, I sent for Mr. George Bulmer, and informed him of his avuncular connection with a genius; and waved certain typewritten pages to establish his title.
Subsequently I read aloud divers portions of As the Coming of Dawn, and Mr. Bulmer sipped Chianti, and listened.
"Look here!" he said, suddenly; "have you seen The Imperial Votaress?"
I frowned. It is always annoying to be interrupted in the middle of a particularly well-balanced sentence. "Don't know the lady," said I.
"She is advertised on half the posters in town," said Mr. Bulmer. "And it is the book of the year. And it is your book."
At this moment I laid down my manuscript. '"I beg your pardon?" said I.
"Your book!" Uncle George repeated firmly; "and scarcely a hair's difference between them, except in the names."
"H'm!" I observed, in a careful voice. "Who wrote it?"
"Some female woman out west," said Mr. Bulmer. "She's a George Something-or-other when she publishes, of course, like all those authorines when they want to say about mankind at large what less gifted women only dare say about their sisters-in-law. I wish to heaven they would pick out some other Christian name when they want to cut up like pagans. Anyhow, I saw her real name somewhere, and I remember it began with an S--Why, to be sure! it's Marian Winwood."
"Amaimon sounds well," I observed; "Lucifer, well; Larbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends: but--Marian Winwood!"
"Dear me!" he remonstrated. "Why, she wrote A Bright Particular Star, you know, and The Acolytes, and lots of others."
The author of As the Coming of Dawn swallowed a whole glass of Chianti at a gulp.
"Of course," I said, slowly, "I cannot, in my rather peculiar position, run the risk of being charged with plagiarism--by a Chinese-eyed mental sneak-thief...."
Thereupon I threw the manuscript into the open fire, which my preference for the picturesque rendered necessary, even in May.
"Oh, look here!" my uncle cried, and caught up the papers. "It is infernally good, you know! Can't you--can't you fix it,--and--er-- change it a bit? Typewriting is so expensive these days that it seems a pity to waste all this."
I took the manuscript and replaced it firmly among the embers. "As you justly observe," said I, "it is infernally good. It is probably a deal better than anything else I shall ever write."
"Why, then--" said Uncle George.
"Why, then," said I, "the only thing that remains to do is to read The Imperial Votaress."
