Yours sincerely,

ANDREW LACKADAY

Well. There was the letter, curiously composed; half French, half English
in the turning of the phrase. The last sentence was sheer translation.
But it was sincere. I need not say that I sent a cordial reply. Our
correspondence thenceforward became intimate and regular.

In his estimate of his manuscript from a literary point of view the
poor General did not exaggerate. Anything more hopeless as a continuous
narrative I have never read. But it supplied facts, hit off odds and
ends of character, and--what the autobiography seldom does--it gave the
_ipsissima verba_ of conversations written in helter-skelter fashion
with flowing pen, sometimes in excellent French, sometimes in English,
which beginning in the elaborate style of his letter broke down into queer
vernacular; it was charmingly devoid of self-consciousness, so that the man
as he was, and not as he imagined himself to be or would like others to
imagine him, stood ingenuously disclosed.

If the manuscript had been that of a total stranger I could not have
undertaken the task of the Bon Dieu making His little arrangements to shape
the earth out of chaos. An elderly literary dilettante, who is not a rabid
archaeologist, has an indolent way of demanding documents clear and precise.
As a matter of fact, it was some months before I felt the courage to tackle
the business. But knowing the man, knowing also Lady Auriol and having
in the meantime made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle Elodie Figasso and
Horatio Bakkus, playing, in fact, a minor role, say, that of Charles, his
friend, in the little drama of his life, I eventually decided to carry out