SIR,—How enjoyable I am finding the revelations of character displayed
in your correspondence columns. As an editor, how I admire Mr. Waugh's swift and entertaining method of airing his concern, not just to his friends—as do most of us—but in the more practical form of a well-paid (I trust) contribu- tion to a national weekly. Again as an editor, how I envy the member of the Spectator staff who was able to put into such happy juxta- position the two letters : Lord Noel-Buxton's testy and somewhat ungallant 'it wasn't my fault, chaps, it was all Nancy Spain and any- way I didn't say it,' and Mr. Carlisle's defence of his 'modest, kindly and abashed' lordly friend.
Just for the record, though, I did happen to be in the room when Nancy Spain read her piece over the telephone to Lord Noel-Buxton before taking it to her editor. And I could not fail to conclude from the mutual cooings that all was harmony. The splendid phrase 'I'm not on business, I'm a member of the House of Lords' which Mr. Waugh and Miss Spain both heard so clearly (and one does not gather they arc collaborators?) was heard equally clearly by me on that occasion and must also have been heard by the gentleman Nancy was then referring to as 'darling Rufus.' But that, of course, was long before the teasing began. The age of chivalry is indeed dead.—Yours faith- fully, JOAN WERNER LAURIE Editor
She, 21 Ebury Street, London, SW1
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