2110-3-5-15

[Mann]

179 Temple Chambers,

Temple Avenue,

London, E. C. 4.

February 14, 1919.

Lt. Col. Buchan,

76 Portland Place,

W. 1.

Dear Colonel Buchan:

This is a letter which I have been meaning to write to you for some time, the reason whereof is as follows:

I unfortunately was carried away to the hospital with a mild attack of scarlet fever several weeks before the armistice and remained interned there all during those pleasant circumstances. When I got out I had to dash off to Brighton to learn how to walk over again, and by the time I returned to town found, to my considerable disappointment, that you had disappeared from official journalistic ken.

All of which is prefatory to my desire to express my great personal appreciation of your kindness to me in my newspaper work here. I had hoped, when I got back to town, that I would run across you sooner or later at some of those official dinners and luncheons one attends for the purpose of covering vocal accompaniments of same; but apparently you accepted your release from official duties with a not altogether unexpected pleasure, and have since forsaken the beaten paths of the foreign correspondents in London.

As this is a personal letter of my own and not an office communique I want to add that while I was in hospital I had the good luck to find two of your books in the library--- "Prester John" and "The Watcher by the Threshold". Although I am not a student of comparative literature I think the former the best thing of its kind since "Treasure Island". But, probably because it opened up a new field to me, I enjoyed "The Watcher" even better. It came somewhat as a surprise to find that the practical man we American newspapermen know at the Ministry of Information had turned out a piece of work of such unorthodox imagination.

Again last evening I was lured into staying up long past midnight over a copy of "Greenmantle". Over and above the interest of the average man in spy or detective stories of the war, a good one always makes a strong appeal to me because during my two and a half years in Washington when I was covering all the Foreign Embassies, I sometimes got pretty close to the

things that happened in the official "fourth dimension".

I know this is rather a long harangue to write to a busy man, but it is always hard for me to deny myself the pleasure of returning thanks for the aid and comfort I receive from some of the men I have to deal with.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur E. Mann