Masquerades and Fallacies
In his capital book Clubland Heroes, Mr. Richard Usborne touches on John Buchan's odd belief in the efficacy of disguise; he really did seem to think, judging by the frequency —and the success—with which his heroes and his villains completely metamorphosed themselves, that a man can so alter his appearance as to make friend and foe alike take him for an entirely different person, often of another race. I have always thought that one of his least promising impos- tures '(it did not actually involve disguise) was the alias assumed by Colonel the Lord Clanroyden (n.6 Sandy Arbuthnot) when lying doggo at an Oxfordshire inn. " By- the-by Dick," said this booby, " just for an extra precaution, my name's Thomson—Alexander Thomson—and I'm a dramatic critic taking a belated Easter holiday." Dramatic criticism is not an over-crowded profession, and I can think of no surer way of inviting unanswerable questions from com- plete strangers than by pretending to belong to it—even if you weren't a tall, lean, abstemious Scottish laird with a Secret Service background.
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