New-York tribune., 1921-05-22
As We W ere Saying 2

the German bullets, so this will prob
ably be his last book But it wasn't.
have had TO disappoint him.
when 1 first went into the army
and was training in England my wife
took a cottage near the barracks, so
that at any rate we could have our
evenings together. l had given up
writing, of course, being much too
busy during the day trying to be a
soldier and much too tired. in the
evenings for anything but light con-
versation. However, she and the
colonel's wife put their heads together
and decided to give a concert to the
troops, one of the features of which
was to be short fairy play by me
acted by my wife and the colonel's
children. l protested strongly, but it
had to be. So l wrote it: and when
it was written and received favorably
by the men (Which, Of course, was al
most a matter of discipline) my wife
insisted that | should offer the idea
to a wider public by writing s. novel
round the characters of the little play
had never written a novel, nor any
thing longer than a 2,000-word article
for Punch, but she promised to do
the difficult part-the writing-if |
did the easy part, the sitting in arm
chair with pipe and telling her what
to say. So l succumbed again. We
wrote Once on a Time, published by
Holder & Stoughton, in London, but
by nobody, unfortunately, in America;
a pity, because it is the book of which
l am most proud.
"The feelings of relief and satisfac-
tion with which we finished the book
lasted only a week. Thereafter the eve
nings seemed very dull without our
imaginary friends to keep Us company,
and we decided to do something else.
Why not q real play? So we wrote my
first play, 'Wurzel Flummery.' 1t was
produced in 1917 at the New Theater
just after / was invalided back from
France, and was followed by Belinda
(also produced by Miss Ethel Barry
more in New York;, and one or two
others. The result of these small sue
cesses was that, when the war was over,
| decided not to go back to the assist
ant editorship of Punch, with its regular
weekly article, but keep myself free to
write what and where and when I liked;
risky, perhaps, at first, but much more
fun. l have been doing this since, and,
thanks to the great success of one play
in particular, MIR. PIN Passes By (suc-
cess in England, I mean; / don't know
how it will get on in America), have
had no financial reasons for regret
ting it.
"But if one must write, one cannot
satisfy ones self with plays alone. For
eighteen months after the war I wrote
essays for various papers, two volumes
of which have been published by Mel
huen in England and Dutton in America.
Also | wrote The Red House I have
always adored detective stories; / have
always thought they must be great fun
to write. One day, about two years ago,
thought of rather good way Of muir
dering somebody. Instead of leaving it
at that, went on thinking about it, and
finally decided that it would make good
story. So l did what had never done
before-I tried to plan out the chapters
of story in little homemade book
of twenty pages; a chapter to a page
The result wasn't very impressive, so
began to write the first chapter and left
the story to take care of itself. / hope
it has done so successfully. Altogether,
/ was with it about eighteen months, but
there were long intervals during which
was writing plays and other things,
when the detective was not really look
ing for clews at all.
81 am now making a novel from Mr..
PIN Passes By This will be pub