 In 1924 Ernest <unk> wrote into a short story a comparison of G K <unk> and Walpole , concluding that the former was the better man , the latter a better writer and both were classics . Walpole could be sensitive about his literary reputation and often took adverse criticism badly . When <unk> <unk> praised P G Wodehouse as the best English writer of their day , Walpole took it <unk> , to the amusement of Wodehouse who regarded <unk> 's <unk> as " a gag , to get a rise out of serious @-@ minded authors whom he disliked " . Wodehouse was not a great admirer of Walpole ; his own <unk> craftsmanship , with drafts polished over and over again , was the opposite of Walpole 's hastily written and seldom @-@ revised prose . He also viewed Walpole 's sensitivity to criticism as absurd . Walpole was not always as <unk> as Wodehouse supposed . The critic James Agate was a friend despite his regular rude remarks about Walpole 's prose , and when Walpole discovered that Agate had written a spoof of the Herries " <unk> " style , he made him promise to print it in the next published volume of his diaries . 
