as the novelists say, and I trust, as he goes on, the reader may
feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides, with that
prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that
something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the
worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to
fill the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old
Surrey town, little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one
of which I have much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner.



CHAPTER VII

PRANDIAL

Dinner!

Is there a more beautiful word in the language?

Dinner!

Let the beautiful word come as a refrain to and fro this chapter.

Dinner!

Just eating and drinking, nothing more, but so much!

Drinking, indeed, has had its laureates. Yet would I offer my
mite of prose in its honour. And when I say "drinking," I
speak not of smuggled gin or of brandy bottles held fiercely by