themselves as my bosom cronies, while she, poor wretch (a man must get
home somewhere), was in the nursery; and that, finally, if she had been
taught English grammar and spelling at school, she would have dispensed
entirely with my pedantic assistance and written the story herself.
Anyhow, man-like, I am broad minded enough to proclaim that it doesn't
very much matter. Man and wife are one. She thinks they are one wife. I
know they are one husband. Between speculation and knowledge why so
futile a thing as a quarrel? I proceed therefore to my originally
self-appointed and fantastic task.

But on reflection, before beginning, I must honestly admit that if it
had not been for Barbara I should write of these things with
half-knowledge. Sex is a queer and incalculable solvent of human
confidence. There are certain revelations that men will make only to a
man, certain revelations likewise that women will make only to a man. On
the other hand, a woman is told things by her sister women and her
brother men which, but for her, would never reach a man's ears. So by
combining the information obtained from our family encyclopædia under
the feminine heading of China with that obtained under the masculine
heading of Philosophy, I can, figuratively speaking, like the famous
student, issue my treatise on Chinese Philosophy.

* * * * *

One miraculous morning in late May, not so very many years ago, when the
parrot-tulips in my garden were expanding themselves wantonly to the
sun, and the lilac and laburnum which I caught, as I sat at my table,
with the tail of one eye, and the pink may which I caught with the tail
of the other, bloomed in splendid arrogance, my quiet outlook on
greenery and colour was obscured by a human form. I may mention that my