It
was whispered in editorial circles that he had come to care more as to
where he could dine next week than how he could write next week. You
see, he was most personable, and he could flatter ladies, and drink like
a gentleman, and wear his evening clothes to perfection--he still had
them made in London--and that sort of unmarried man is always in demand
in New York. Add to these social graces the piquancy of a little
literary reputation, and you have the perfect male butterfly.
Shelby fluttered his way through the corridors and drawing rooms of the
rich, and his later work, if you will notice, always touches upon what
is called smart society. We heard that he never mentioned his newspaper
days--that he was not a little ashamed of having spent so many months
bending over a typewriter in a dingy, cluttered office. Yet it was there
he had learned to write; and had he been true to the best traditions of
those days of exciting assignments, how far he might have gone on the
long literary road!
The war came. Of course Shelby was beyond the draft age--quite far
beyond it; but he had no ties, was in perfect physical condition, and he
might have found in the trenches another contact that would have made a
thorough man of him. Again, he had always loved England and the English
so dearly that it would not have been surprising had he offered his
services in some way to that country when she and her allies so needed
assistance.
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