The Goose and the Golden Egg
197
"The note-book," I reminded him; "it bears witness of my intention."
"It is being used as evidence against you. The suggestion is that you kept a list to avoid going to the same place twice."
I fell back speechless at the malignity of fate and the ingenuity of man. Even my irrepressible fount of gaiety was almost quenched.
In the end, a ridiculously got-up official, after some farcical proceedings, sentenced me to six months' incarceration in an unwholesome den. I have just finished this period, but I positively decline to consider that the whole burlesque travesty leaves the slightest reflection upon my character.
Hampton Hill, 1905.
