Volume 2, Number 1 · February 20, 1964
Out of Vogue
By Malcolm Muggeridge
The World In Vogue
Viking Press, 416 pp., $16.00
On a pious visit once to the late Sir Max Beerbohm in Rappallo, it being a hot day, I took one of the horsedrawn carriages which still ply for hire there. This antique and decrepit vehicle waited for me during the hour or so I spent with Sir Max. I had rather hoped to slip off unnoticed in it when the time came to go, but in his usual polite way Sir Max saw me to the door, the straw hat which he wore on all possible occasions rakishly tilted to one side, and his little, red-rimmed tired eyes still faintly animated on my behalf. My lurking chariot at once came lumbering up, and there was no evading my connection with it. I got aboard and settled among the flea-ridden rugs with the best grace I could manage. The driver flicked his wretched animal, whose bones stuck out alarmingly, like a reconstructed skeleton of some prehistoric monster in a museum. As we lumbered off I heard Sir Max muttering to himself: 'Carriage folk! Carriage folk!'
Review, 1480 words
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