when I received Miss Berrith’s letter of farewell, I took no further pleasure in my celibacy or my home. Any attempt to do so, even in my own mind, I knew to be pure bravado. In the first place, “Sans Souci” was ridiculously large. As I sat in a corner of my den, occupying some twelve cubic feet of space, the long corridor and the other rooms reproached me with their superfluity of accommodation. As a boy, it had been my opinion that I could never have a sufficiency of watermelon. I still remember, with a sense of loathing, the occasion when I matched my appetite against a whole one. To this day, I view that fruit with an emotion akin to that which the sight of his monster must have inspired in the breast of Frankenstein, an emotion which now returned to me as I contemplated the too ample proportions of “Sans Souci.” In the homely phrase, I had bitten off more than I could chew.
Again, I saw in my position an analogy to
