THE
WILLIAM J. LOCKE
YEAR-BOOK

A _bon-mot_ for each day in
every year, selected from
this popular author's works.

_Decorated Cloth. $1.00 net_




CHAPTER I


I received a letter the day before yesterday from my old friend, Jaffery
Chayne, which has inspired me to write the following account of that
dear, bull-headed, Pantagruelian being. I must say that I have been
egged on to do so by my wife, of whom hereafter. A man of my somewhat
urbane and dilettante temperament does not do these things without being
worried into them. I had the inspiration, however. I told Barbara (my
wife), and she agreed, at the time, dutifully, that I ought to record
our friend Jaffery's doings. But now, womanlike, she declares that the
first suggestion, the root germ of the idea, came from her; that the
"egging on" is merely the vain man's way of misdefining a woman's serene
insistence; that she has given me, out of her intimate knowledge, all
the facts of the story--although Jaffery Chayne and Adrian Boldero and
poor Tom Castleton, and others involved in the imbroglio, counted