With that hat he once saluted me in
Regent St. when I was walking with my mother. Her interest was
instantly kindled; and the following conversation ensued. "Who is
that?" "Cunninghame Graham." "Nonsense! Cunninghame Graham is one
of your Socialists: that man is a gentleman." This is the
punishment of vanity, a fault I have myself always avoided, as I
find conceit less troublesome and much less expensive. Later on
somebody told him of Tarudant, a city in Morocco in which no
Christian had ever set foot. Concluding at once that it must be an
exceptionally desirable place to live in, he took ship and horse:
changed the hat for a turban; and made straight for the sacred
city, via Mogador. How he fared, and how he fell into the hands of
the Cadi of Kintafi, who rightly held that there was more danger
to Islam in one Cunninghame Graham than in a thousand Christians,
may be learnt from his account of it in Mogreb-el-Acksa, without
which Captain Brassbound's Conversion would never have been
written.
I am equally guiltless of any exercise of invention concerning the
story of the West Indian estate which so very nearly serves as a
peg to hang Captain Brassbound. To Mr. Frederick Jackson of
Hindhead, who, against all his principles, encourages and abets me
in my career as a dramatist, I owe my knowledge of those main
facts of the case which became public through an attempt to make
the House of Commons act on them.
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