poetry, he may well write an introduction justifying his principle of
selection, pointing out here and there, as the spirit moves him, high
beauties and supreme excellencies, discoursing of the magnates and
lords and princes of literature, whom he is merely serving as groom of
the chamber. Introductions, that is, belong to the masterpieces and
classics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted things;
and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own which
appeared in _The Evening News_ about ten months ago.

I appreciate the absurdity, nay, the enormity of the position in all
its grossness. And my excuse for these pages must be this: that though
the story itself is nothing, it has yet had such odd and unforeseen
consequences and adventures that the tale of them may possess some
interest. And then, again, there are certain psychological morals to
be drawn from the whole matter of the tale and its sequel of rumours
and discussions that are not, I think, devoid of consequence; and so
to begin at the beginning.



This was in last August, to be more precise, on the last Sunday of
last August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sunday
morning between meat and mass. It was in _The Weekly Dispatch_ that I
saw the awful account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollect
the details; but I have not forgotten the impression that was then on
my mind, I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony and
terror seven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was the
British Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yet
aureoled in it, scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred and
for ever glorious. So I saw our men with a shining about them, so I