Eddy went round to the rooms in Old Compton Street which he shared with Arnold Denison. Arnold had chosen Soho for residence partly because he liked it, partly to improve his knowledge of languages, and partly to study the taste of the neighbourhood in literature, as it was there that he intended, when he had more leisure, to start a bookshop. Eddy, too, liked it. (This is a superfluous observation, because anybody would.) In fact, he liked his life in general just now. He liked reviewing for the _Daily Post_ and writing for himself (himself _via_ the editors of various magazines who met with his productions on their circular route and pushed them on again). He liked getting review copies of books to keep; his taste was catholic and omnivorous, and boggled at nothing. With joy he perused everything, even novels which had won prizes in novel competitions, popular discursive works called “About the Place,” and books of verse (to do them justice, not even popular) called “Pipings,” and such. He wrote appreciative reviews of all of them, because he appreciated them all. It may fairly be said that he saw each as its producer saw it, which may or may not be what a reviewer should try to do, but is anyhow grateful and comforting to the reviewed. Arnold, who did not do this, in vain protested that he would lose his job soon. “No literary editor will stand such indiscriminate fulsomeness for long.... It’s a dispensation of providence that you didn’t come and read for us, as I once mistakenly wished. You would, so far as your advice carried any weight, have dragged us down into the gutter. Have you no sense of values or of decency? Can you really like these florid effusions of base minds?” He was reading through Eddy’s last review, which was of a book of verse by a lady gifted with emotional tendencies and an admiration for landscape. Arnold shook his head and laughed as he put the review down. “The queer thing about it is that it’s not a bad review, in spite of everything you say in appreciation of the lunatic who wrote the book. That’s what I can’t understand; how you can be so intelligent and yet so idiotic. You’ve given the book exactly, in a few phrases--no one could possibly mistake its nature--and then you make several quite true, not to say brilliant remarks about it--and then you go on and say how good it is.... Well, I shall be interested to see how long they keep you on.” “They like me,” Eddy assured him, complacently. “They think I write well. The authors like me, too. Many a heartfelt letter of thanks do I get from those whom there are few to praise and fewer still to love. As you may have noticed, they strew the breakfast table. Is it _comme il faut_ for me to answer? I do--I mean, I did, both times--because it seemed politer, but it was perhaps a mistake, because the correspondence between me and one of them has not ceased yet, and possibly never will, since neither of us likes to end it. How involving life is!”