_My dear Bob: In dedicating this book to you, I do more than follow the
selfish impulse of pleasing myself. It was you who warned me that none
of the usual fiction-labels would fit "H. R." To irritate the reader by
compelling him to think in order to understand was, you told me, both
unfair and unwise. But a writer occasionally may be permitted to please
himself, and if his experiment fails there remains the satisfaction of
having tried. I have not labelled my jokes explicitly nor have I written
a single foot-note in the middle of a page. I have endeavored to
reproduce a recognizable atmosphere by intentionally exaggerating
certain phases of the attitude of New York toward the eternal verities.
Not even for purposes of contrast have I felt bound to have a nice
character in the book. But if the reader fails to get what you so
clearly understood, and if the critics point out how completely I have
failed to write a Satirical Romance of To-day, I can at least make
certain of having one line in this volume with which none may find
fault. And that, Great and Good Friend, is the line at the top of this
page._
_E. L._
_Dorset, Vt., June, 1915._