The Secret Chronicles of Henry Dashwood, Vol. 2

It was obvious that Julian would be unlikely to recover till tea-time at the earliest, so knowing that I might have some time on my hands, I took this journal with me today and hence am busy filling two or three pages over an excellent cup of afternoon coffee. The Montpellier Restaurant is across the road from the domed Rotunda, built some fifty years ago as a Pump Room where one may sip the famed Cheltenham waters in ease and comfort. Personally, I am somewhat sceptical as to whether glugging down pints of mineral water is beneficial to health (although I suppose a course of treatment cuts down on one's alcoholic intake). My uncle, Sir Robert Bacon, swears that he comes back a new man after his annual visit to Carlsbad every July. However, this has probably to do more with his nightly dalliances with the ladies of the town than anything else and I remember just how difficult it was for him last year to explain away to my aunt the contents of billet-doux he received from Countess Marussia of Samarkand after his return from the Slovakian spa. Be that as it may, my own far shorter excursion to Cheltenham has so far proved extremely rewarding. For a gardener, Dawson drove Julian's Wolseley extremely well and I asked him how he came to acquire this skill. 'I went down with Sir Talbot to “Lunnon” for the Royal Agricultural Show and at my request he let me take the wheel there and back,' he explained. When I enquired whether he had enjoyed the sights of the Metropolis, he said: 'It were all right, sir, but the Cockneys thought I was a “furriner” and I couldn't understand them.' At my request, he stopped the car outside the first bookstore we came across which happened to be Robertson's Bookshop which was situated almost alongside the theatre and opposite the County Court. Remarkably, I was the only person in the well-stocked shop and I scanned through the books in the Political-Economy section uninterrupted by other browsers. Alas', I could not find a copy of Basic Economics by Professor Zanerowski which I had been recommended to purchase by my tutor. When I asked the assistant who was sitting by the till at the front of the shop if there might be a copy in the stock room he said: 'I very much doubt it, sir. There is little demand for academic titles round here except from the Cheltenham College – but you might be lucky and find a copy in our second-hand department upstairs.' 'Very well, I'll take a look and see if you're right,' I said and made my way upstairs where two gentlemen were engaged in a heated discussion.

It soon became clear that the well-set gentleman dressed in a black Vicuna jacket with a silk-quilted collar and cuffs was Mr. Robertson, the eponymous owner of the shop and the younger man, who was wearing a smart grey lounge suit, was a representative of a publisher bent on obtaining an order for his company's latest wares. They were engaged in a keen discussion upon the state of the book trade to which I listened with interest, for if I ever had to enter trade (God forbid!) I would certainly plump for this gentlemanly profession.

'No, no, no, the market for historical texts is dreadfully slow and you'll have to show me something more lively than another of Mr.

Jackley's accounts,' said the bookseller. 'Come now, Mr. Lewis, surely the editors at Burbeck and Newman plan to publish some more contemporary works? The representative gave a tiny smile and passed a blue folder to his unwilling customer. 'Neil, I think I shall have to ask you to write to Mr. Burbeck and assure him that I do drop in here regularly. Your orders have been so small this year that he accused me of missing your shop out of my calls.' 'Well, you can tell him from me that if he published better books, then we would all earn more money,' said Mr. Robertson as he opened the folder and extracted some typed sheets from it. 'Good grief, what's this when it's at home?' 'It's The Courtship of Francesco by Mrs. Heather Adamson which is going to be the biggest seller this year. Neil, I guarantee that come December every lady in Cheltenham will be asking you for a copy of this novel. We've sent out advance reading sheets to some customers and though they deemed it a very fast story indeed, they all wanted a finished copy. 'I'll take fifty,' said Mr.