It seemed to be no more than a piece of good luck that let me find him that night in a little room in one of the by-ways of Bloomsbury.

He was sprawling angularly on a cane lounge, surrounded by whole rubbish heaps of manuscript, a grey scrawl in a foam of soiled paper.

He peered up at me as I stood in the doorway.
"Hullo!" he said, "what's brought you here?
Have a manuscript ?" He waved an abstracted hand round him.

"You'll find a chair somewhere." A claret bottle stood on the floor beside him.

He took it by the neck and passed it to me.
He bent his head again and continued his reading.