Derrick Vaughan, Novelist

This is a biographical book. To attempt a formal biography of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the question, even though he and I have been more or less thrown together since we were both in the nursery. But I have an odd sort of wish to note down roughly just a few of my recollections of him, and to show how his fortunes gradually developed, being perhaps stimulated to make the attempt by certain irritating remarks which one over hears now often enough at clubs or in drawing-rooms, or indeed wherever one goes. 'Derrick Vaughan', say these authorities of the world of small-talk, with that delightful air of omniscience which invariably characterises them, 'why, he simply leapt into fame. He is one of the favourites of fortune. Like Byron, he woke one morning found himself famous.