Ernest

Ernest, being Ernest, quickly fell in with many on the list.

Shortly after arriving here, Gellhorn returned to the China front and once again left Ernest to be Ernest, this time with an ocean view and manorial comforts, with a bearable touch of pretension.

And Ernest he was, writing in the morning, hiking the lush seaside overlooks in the afternoon, maybe bagging a pheasant or two with “Two-Gun” Cohen, and entertaining in the evenings at the bar.

“That was Ernest Bloch,” he casually told me after one piece, spelling out Ernest and then Bloch.

The couple, otherwise known as Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park, appeared on the London stage — and often out and about in public — in snazzy women’s attire.