NOCTURNE

By FRANK SWINNERTON

1917




TO MARTIN SECKER

THIS "NOCTURNE"




INTRODUCTION BY H.G. WELLS

"'But do I see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of
happy infancy? And may I--_may_ I?'

"This May I, meant might he shake hands?"

--DICKENS, _Great Expectations_.

I do not know why I should be so overpoweringly reminded of the
immortal, if at times impossible, Uncle Pumblechook, when I sit down to
write a short preface to Mr. Swinnerton's _Nocturne_. Jests come at
times out of the backwoods of a writer's mind. It is part of the
literary quality that behind the writer there is a sub-writer, making a