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I must now retrace my steps to the summer. Austin Harrison has a house in Seaford where he lives 
with his wife, a charming lady whom he had 
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successfully removed from the protection of her previous husband. He worked the scheme with 
extraordinary ability. A man of his prominence in London might expect the fullest details in every 
newspaper of a divorce case in which he was co-respondent. But he managed the matter so craftily 
that only a few of his intimate friends even got wind of the game. 
When in London, he had his rooms in the house of a man named Robinson Smith, a retired concert 
agent with a wife apparently selected in order to prevent him imagining that life is nothing but 
music. I met him at Seaford one day after playing golf with Harrison. Nothing much transpired but 
later in London, he suddenly appeared in the character of a brother adept. His attainments were 
considerable, though his knowledge was unsystematic and his judgment correspondingly 
unbalanced. But his genius and his enthusiasm warmed the cockles of my heart. His idea of helping 
humanity was through social simplification and economic readjustment, with corresponding 
rectifications in other directions. He allowed his inspiration too much liberty. It being late in life 
when he devoted himself exclusively to the Great Work, he had not learned that Pegasus should be 
ridden on the curb when riding out with friends who bestrode spavined hacks. Harrison constantly 
hinted he was insane. This he was not. But I thought that his friend and his wife were conspiring to 
put him into an asylum; in fact I was definitely warned by the Secret Chiefs of his danger, and wrote 
in veiled language, in view of his mail being tampered with, to put him on his guard. 
To his kindness I owed it that I was able to leave London at all. He paid me a month in advance for 
his proposed visit to Cefalu at Christmas. 
At his house in Gordon Square occurred a most amusing incident, the climax of a whole series. It 
started thus. H. L. Mencken had written me to expect his visit on a certain date. We had 
corresponded a good deal while I was in America. But he lived in Baltimore and I managed to miss 
meeting him. On the day expected I saw in a paper a notice that he had arrived, and went at once 
to the office of the English Review expecting him to call. No word had arrived so we thought we 
would hunt him up, and assuming he would be staying at the Savoy, telephoned. "Mr Mencken is at 
lunch. Please hold on!" Presently he came to the 'phone. 
I welcomed him warmly after telling him who I was and made the usual kind inquiries. Yes, he had 
had a pleasant voyage. Thank you, his health was excellent. Well, of course he was very busy. He 
couldn't possibly dine that night, but wouldn't we call at the hotel about it? We would and we did. 
He would be disengaged in five minutes. Would we please wait? 
It was the day of Northcliffe's funeral and Harrison got into communication with some friend who 
had been among the mourners. While thus engaged, Mencken appeared. I greeted him with 
enthusiasm though not 
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a little surprised at his appearance. I did not expect to see such a giant, so robust and hearty, so 
rubicund. It was not my idea at all of what the keenest critic in the United States should look like. 
However, we strolled off to the smoking-room. Harrison would join us in a few minutes. The 
conversation became fluent and friendly. He ordered the best brandy and the biggest cigars. But, 
somehow I could not help feeling that his reaction to my remarks was peculiar. Could I possibly have 
offended him somehow? Impossible; he was friendliness itself! Then why did he fail to catch fire at 
my suggestions, or even appreciate the cordial compliments with which I interspersed my remarks. 
He, on his side, seemed embarrassed. But we had talked quite ten minutes before he said, "You will 
excuse me, I'm sure; but I don't understand what you mean by that last observation." This was 
absurd. It was some perfectly simple straightforward comment on his last book. I began to suspect 
him of pulling my leg in some supersubtle system invented since my return to Europe. "Are you