IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF HIS READER
"But come," I imagine some reader complaining, "isn't it high time for
something to happen?" No doubt it is, but what am I to do? I am no
less discontented. Is it not even more to my interest than to the
reader's for something to happen? Here have I been tramping along
since breakfast-time, and now it is late in the afternoon, but never a
feather of her dove's wings, never a flutter of her angel's robes have
I seen. It is disheartening, for one naturally expects to find
anything we seek a few minutes after starting out to seek it, and I
confess that I expected to find my golden mistress within a very few
hours of leaving home. However, had that been the case, there would
have been no story, as the novelists say, and I trust, as he goes on,
the reader may feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides,
with that prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that
something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the
worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to fill
the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old Surrey town,
little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one of which I have
much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner.