2 APRIL 1948, Page 5

The number of persons in the world who apparently attach

no importance to their own name is incredible. Again and again I get letters quite tolerably written—and in any case the context usually clarifies what is obscure—culminating in some utterly illegible scrawl or flourish representing a signature. How can one reply ? Sometimes even the wildest approximation is impossible. One way is to cut the signature out and gum it on an envelope, but that means getting involved with gum, which in my case never ends happily. I am one of the world's worst writers myself, but I defy anyone to say he has failed to decipher my signature.

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