There are a number of possible vocational explanations why actors rarely are encountered in chimney corners engrossed in a book. I pass by the reasons and recite the fact that they are not. An actor reading a book either wrote the book or he is looking to see if his name is mentioned in it. We read the trade papers, the newspapers and occasionally the magazines, because there the chance of finding our names is a sporting one, but having learned early in life that we might read a year in a library without once coming across the name of, for example, De Wolf Hopper, we are not exactly bookish.
The trade papers, newspapers and magazines are kept in the main lounge room of the club, where they are rustled occasionally by a member with nothing better to do. When in the course of casting a reportorial eye over the club for the purposes of this article, I asked to be directed to the library, I was sent to the newspaper rack.
"No," I protested, "there is a library here somewhere, a library with books in it. I know I have noticed it several times."
An old member corroborated me, but the secretary could not be found. When he returned from lunch he admitted that there was a library and asked me why I wished to go there.
[213]
