"Not at all, sir."

"Well, then----"

No--wait. Hold the line a minute. I've gone off the rails.


I don't know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always
come up against when I'm telling a story is this dashed difficult problem
of where to begin it. It's a thing you don't want to go wrong over,
because one false step and you're sunk. I mean, if you fool about too
long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and
all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.

Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your public
is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can't make out what
you're talking about.

And in opening my report of the complex case of Gussie Fink-Nottle,
Madeline Bassett, my Cousin Angela, my Aunt Dahlia, my Uncle Thomas,
young Tuppy Glossop and the cook, Anatole, with the above spot of
dialogue, I see that I have made the second of these two floaters.

I shall have to hark back a bit. And taking it for all in all and
weighing this against that, I suppose the affair may be said to have had
its inception, if inception is the word I want, with that visit of mine
to Cannes. If I hadn't gone to Cannes, I shouldn't have met the Bassett
or bought that white mess jacket, and Angela wouldn't have met her shark,
and Aunt Dahlia wouldn't have played baccarat.