Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/89



I return on the 12th; on the 13th I go cuckooing at the Wharf, returning on the 16th; on the 18th I join my wife at Bexhill; how, I ask you, can I come a-cuckooing in Lincoln's Inn?

Nor do see any chance of touching The Tour'' while I am here. I am really too busy to do aught but play the sedulous cuckoo in Cockayne. So let my visit to you be a pleasure (to both of us) postponed''

To this I replied, 14. 7. 19'': I lunched yesterday with one Butterworth, who is opening up a publisher's business. In the course of conversation I mentioned to him your translation of ''Old People and the Things that Pass''. More than that, I took upon myself to lend him my copy of the American edition so that he might have an opportunity of forming his own opinion of it. You may, if you like, call me interfering and presumptuous, but I have not committed you in any way to anything, and yesterday's transaction may be regarded as no more than the loan of a book from one person to another. I, as you know, feel it a reproach that that book is still unpublished in England, and, if Butterworth thinks fit to make you a good offer, no one will be better pleased than me''