"
Not thus, but in words to that effect, did Tommy announce his deed to
Grizel.
"I think you have done the right thing," she wrote back, "and I admire
you for it." But he thought she did not admire him sufficiently for
it, and he did not answer her letter, so it was the last that passed
between them.
Such is the true explanation (now first published) of an affair that
at the time created no small stir. "Why withdraw the book?" Goldie &
Goldie asked of Tommy, but he would give no reason. "Why?" the public
asked of Goldie & Goldie, and they had to invent several. The public
invented the others. The silliest were those you could know only by
belonging to a club.
I swear that Tommy had not foreseen the result. Quite unwittingly the
favoured of the gods had found a way again. The talk about his
incomprehensible action was the turning-point in the fortunes of the
book. There were already a few thousand copies in circulation, and now
many thousand people wanted them. Sandys, Sandys, Sandys! where had
the ladies heard that name before? Society woke up, Sandys was again
its hero; the traveller had to go lecturing in the provinces.
The ladies! Yes, and their friends, the men.
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