Fair-Weather Fiends Possibly I am the only man in journalism
who never Played pontoon. with Peter Rachman, or got sloshed with Comrade Philby, or lived in the flat upstairs from Whatsitsname, and I must say this revelation of an empty life is offered with some pious complacency. I am incapable of writing a stirring series on The Inside Filth on Mister Q because I haven't got it. Certainly I know an awful lot of people. Some of them are nasty to their wives and some take a terrible bucket and some of them have borrowed books without returning them; and the way things are, almost any of them might turn up on page one as The Missing Man at any moment. But since I know their footling little secrets through friendship, I hope I shall go on treating these secrets as privileged, and keep my big mouth shut no matter how much I am offered for art exclusive. The mad rush of recent years to blow the gaff on old Charlie strikes me as sad, and immoral, if you like: especially when I think of what could be printed about me if I were sud- denly the Charlie.
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