When Benedick said that he would die a bachelor he did not know, as
he observed later, that he would live to be married. In the same
way, I have to confess that when in my preface to _Windfalls_ I
hinted that it would be the last of these little books, I did not
think that there would be another.
Mr. Dent has convinced me of my mistake. This is the fourth
collection I have made and, warned of the danger of forecasting the
future, I will say no word in prejudice of a fifth. The essays, like
those in the previous volumes, have appeared in _The Star_, many of
them also in the _Manchester Evening News_ and some in the _Glasgow
Citizen_.