It was a review--a remarkable eulogy--of the novel he had finished and deposited with his agent shortly before that sudden impulse on the Thames embankment. It was embellished with photographs of himself, with reproductions of the covers of his two earlier novels, with inscriptions announcing the prodigious number of editions into which they seemed to have gone, and with extracts of "exquisite" or "thought-provoking" or "witty" passages set in frames. Beneath that flaming "The Wriford Boom: Another Brilliant Novel" was a long sub-title in small black type epitomizing all that lay beneath it. Mr. Wriford read it curiously. In part it dealt with what was described in inverted commas as his "disappearance." Evidently much on that head was general knowledge. The writer scamped details leading up to his main point, the Wriford Boom and the contribution thereto of a brilliant new novel, with many a plausible "Of course." The mystery of the disappearance which was "of course" no longer a mystery; Mr. Wriford had "of course" been seen by a friend leaving Charing Cross by the Continental train a few days after his disappearance; later he had "of course" been seen in Paris, and he was now "of course" living somewhere on the Continent in complete seclusion. The writer contrasted this modest escape from lionisation with the conduct of other authors who "of course" need not be named, and proceeded to tremendous figures of book-sales, and of advance orders for the present volume, making his point finally with "A boom which, if started by the sensational 'disappearance,' has served to make almost every section of the general public share in the rare literary quality enjoyed by--comparatively speaking--the few who recognized Mr. Wriford's genius at the outset."