“The next accurate information we obtained was from C. R. W. Nevinson, who had met him at a luncheon with Grant Richards, Firbank’s publisher. Nevinson had once divined in him an amusing character. He described his appearance to us, I remember, and related how after the meal Firbank, rising willowly to his feet, observed, ‘Now I must go to the Bank.’ ‘But they are all shut. You won’t be able to get in!’ objected Richards; to which Firbank, displaying his long, unmuscular arms and thin fingers, replied anxiously, ‘What? Not even with my crowbar?’ ”

(Osbert Sitwell, pp. xi–xii in his introduction to the New Directions edition of Ronald Firbank’s Five Novels.)