" No decent man," wrote the Editor of the Sunday
Times last Sunday, "could leave it lying about the house, or know without shame that his womenfolk were reading it." He was referring to an American war-book called The Naked and the Dead, which is published over here next week, and when I read his stern words I could not help feeling rather uncomfortable. For I am sorry to say that I not only could but actually did leave this book, the American edition of which a neighbour had lent me, lying about my house for several months last winter until at last I remembered to return it, half-read. (Though " powerful " and undeniably 'dirty, the book—a very long one— is full of a synthetic toughness which I find boring, and I got stuck in it.) I now stand convicted of moral turpitude, which is a thoroughly bad show, and what is more I am a little worried about all these " womenfolk." How many of these tender creatures ought
one to have on one's strength? The Editor of the Sunday Times seems to postulate an indeterminate but sizeable number. Counting my wife, but not counting Nanny and the cook, I can only raise three womenfolk in all, two of whom are less than pint-size and won't be able to read for several years—hardly worth, as you might say, keeping a bullet for if we were attacked by Red Indians. I feel pretty sure that the Editor of the Sunday Times expects me to have more than this. What is a chap—and no decent chap, either—to do ?
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