Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-11
saw he would never be able to draw her

1tOh Ou 0tlOulQ WOkHCn ETOpOoC! dS
she made UP and ended: That's all
have to say. You will use one of my
prettiest photographs, won't wou? And
now must CO." She went. The little
man drifted out in her wake. 1t was
Barrie. He had come around only to
congratulate the actress on the render
ing of her part.
At this time he captained a cricket
team of writers, the Allahakharries. A
legend attaches to that name. He was
captaining a team of celebrities who
on village green. In the train Barrie
found that some of his men barely knew
the rudiments OF the game. Still, they
were full of confidence, and one of them
kept saying, Intellect succeeds In the
end" Barrie doubted 1t, and asked an
African traveller what the Moorish for
Heaven help US" was "AllahaiSba,
said the traveller. THAT shall be the
name Of this team" said Barrie. He
kept the name for subsequent teams, but
out OF compliment TO himself his players
turned it into "Allahakbarries."
One of the most valuable items Of
Barrieana now is an illustrated PAM
phlet dated 1899, entitled The AL
lahakbarries Book Of Broadway Cricket"
and dedicated to "our dear enemy Mary
de Navarro" (the American actress had
settled on her retirement in a Worces-
tershire village where Barrie sometimes
took his team to play.
Haunted KensingtOn Gardens.
He spoke at dinners. occasionally
would be found playing billiards at the
Garrick Club, but his chief relaxation
then, as now, was solitary walking. He
haunted Kenstngton Gardens, the old
royal park opposite which he had a
b. L. T. L.. g.
run of those gardens after they were
closed, the park ranger. the Duke of
Cambridge, being 50 enchanted by one
of his books that he sent him q private
key to the gates. For q while he had
the company of Porthos in his walks.
Porthos was big Saint Bernard. ac-
quired as pup during BarrIe's honey
moon in Switzerland. The little man
ran races with Porthos, talked to him
as a child, taught him trickS--how to
undo parcels and how to choose his
always a yellow shocker). The enor-
nous dog would lie on q sofa in the
study watching his master as he worked.
Often, when they were out together,
Barrie would go into q toy shop and
buy a toy, ostensibly for q child, but
really for Porthos, who had q passion
for them.
and when he died Barrie never got an
other
Inspired by Children.
There were also those children who
inspired Barrie with the dream of
Peter Pan. They were the three sons
of Sylvia and Arthur Llewellyn Davies,
daughter and son-in-law Of George du
Maurier, of "Trilby" fame. Through
the youngsters, he made the acquaint-
ance of the parents and would go down
and stay with them at their country
home in Surrey.
He played at pirates and Indians with
the boys in the woods and on the little
island in the lake. That lake, years
after, became the mermaid's lagoon in
Peter Pan and the woods those woods
under which the Lost Boys had their
home and through which the pirates
marched chanting:
Ayast' be, SsIay nt the eu EISlisn s.n brig
And for w23Enins to the &c ere n;.nk,
In q little book which he called The
Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island"
(only two copies were printed, and one
Is now LOST Barrie wrote the story OF
their games. The boys were all grown
up when Barrie addressed his dedication
to the text of Peter Pan to The Five"
two more sons having been added TO
the Llewellyn Davies family in the
interim. They meant q good deal to
him, those boys, for he was very lonely
man. And perhaps he still is lonely.
He has always sought refuge from his
essential loneliness in these romantic
friendships with children whose lives
he has shared intimately until they
have grown up and the spell has broken.
II he could 90 back to the beginning
and make himself as he would like to
have been maybe he would decide to be
cast in the mold of one Of those robust
men of action whom as boy he revered
and longed to be like. He had been
drawn by this enthusiasm for explorers
In particular to q close friendship with
Capt. Scott, the Polar explorer and his
wife (now Lady Hilton Young.
Guardian Of SCOTS Son.
Scott, dying beside his dead COM
panions in his tent in the icy wastes
close to the South Pole, urged his wife
to go to Barrie for advice and aid when
he was gone and made Barrie guardian
TO his son. Barrie has the explorers
diary. 1t Is perhaps the most treasured
possession Of a man who has many
treasured possessions. The last word
on the stained record Is courage" It
was the last word, struggling away that
the dying explorer could form With the
pencil that was falling from his chilling
fingers.
Some years back Barrie's right hand
gave up and he thought he would not
be able to write again. The idea Of try
ing to train himself to write with his
left hand terrified him He did not
think he would ever be able to do 1t. 1t
was while he was wrestling with this
problem and almost giving up that he
looked through SCOTS diary again and
his eyes fell upon that last word "cour-
age" He. said to himself: IF Scott
could go on writing this record after he
knew he was done, and could keep it
up until the pencil fell from his dying
fingers, can teach myself to write with
my left hand"
And he did. He wrote Mary Rose"
with his left hand and said afterward
that there are things that come down
your left arm that never come down
your right.
Quit Books in 1905.
He stopped writing books in 1905, and
devoted himself to the theater. His
plays came out every year, sometimes
three pieces a year, right through the
war He tried his hand az revues twice,
once for Gaby Delys. Botn were terrible,
but the latter was the worst And then
in 1920 ne wrote The Truth About the
Russian Dancers" and Mary Rose" and
stopped writing altogether, except for
curtain raiser two years later.
He Is very rich. He lives modestly,
and the money keeps on rolling in. It
does not come in tidal waves. as it used
to when he was at his peak and had
half a dozen plays running at the same
time in town: but the Barrie books, like
the Ktpling books, remain at the top OF
the little group Of authors whose old
books sell tens of thousands OF copies
all over the world regularly every year.
He doesn't travel. Even in Winter he
doesn't follow the crowd who seek the