COMPETITION NO. 16
Snt,—Mr. Bernard Shaw once remarked that the best way to elicit the truth of a subject was to argue it with reckless bias for and against. Mr. Geo. Jackson will perhaps bear that in mind when I assure him that my verses about Kipling were not intended to do him justice, but rather to say the worst of him as belligerently as possible. Had I been so conceited as to think anything I could write would affect his reputation one way or the other I might have been, shall I say, more restrained.
It may further put me right with admirers of " the faun the gods call Kipling " to mention that the first purchase I made with my book-token prize was a copy of The Jungle Book.
As to the style of Mr. Jackson's verse, I heartily agree with him. But why identify it with mine?—Yours faithfully,
ALLAN M. LAING.
Lyndale, 19 Wavertree Nook Road, Liverpool, 15.
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