THE  CARGO  SHIP	19
Ballyhoo
The cinema in Teneriffe was showing a film which
had been adapted from one of my own novels. It
had been an instructive and rather painful experience
to see it shown. The direction was incompetent, the
photography undistinguished, the story sentimental.
If there was any truth in the original it had been
carefully altered, if anything was left unchanged it
was because it was untrue. By what was unchanged
I could judge and condemn my own novel: I could
see clearly what was cheap and banal enough to fit
the cheap banal film.
There remained a connection between it and me.
One had never taken the book seriously; it had been
written hurriedly because of the desperate need one
had for the money* But even into a book of that kind
had gone a certain amount of experience, nine months
of one's life, it was tied up in the mind with a par-
ticular countryside, particular anxieties; one couldn't
disconnect oneself entirely, and it was curious, rather
pleasing, to find it there in the hot bright flowery
town. There are places where one is ready to welcome
any kind of acquaintance with memories in common;
he may be cheap but he knew Annette; he may be dis-
honest but he once lodged with George; even if the
acquaintance is very dim indeed and takes a lot of
recognising.
Two Youthful Hearts in the Grip of Intrigue.
Fleeing from Life. Cheated? Crashing Across
Europe. Wheels of Fate.
Never before had I seen American ballyhoo at work
on something I intimately knew. It was magnificent