Eliot's entire corpus
Sir: If Eliot sang 'What did Robinson Crusoe do with Friday on Saturday Night?' he was in error, for the question raised in this admirable ballad fifty years ago was 'Where did Robinson Crusoe go?' I could supply the lines which followed and revealed the answer to this interesting problem on request, as I often sang this song myself at that time.
I was one of a small dining club which Eliot often attended in the 'thirties when he was never 'aloof' but always 'the gay, witty companion.' I recall on one evening, when he had ordered that rather noxious concoction a poise Belle Helene, one of us remarking that he could not imagine how a poet could choose such a thing. 'That only proves that you are not a poet,' replied Eliot, 'but I am a poet and I can imagine it quite easily.' To such a knockdown argument there could be no reply.
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