PREFACE
bed at last takes its proper place in fiction. "Mr Salteena woke up rarther early next day and was delighted to find Horace the footman entering with a cup of tea. Oh thank you my man said Mr Salteena rolling over in the costly bed. Mr Clark is nearly out of the bath sir announced Horace I will have great pleasure in turning it on for you if such is your desire. Well yes you might said Mr Salteena seeing it was the idear." Mr Salteena cleverly conceals his emotion, but as soon as he is alone he rushes to Ethel's door, "I say said Mr Salteena excitedly I have had some tea in bed."
"Sometimes visitors came to the house." Nothing much in that to us, but how consummately this child must have studied them; if you consider what she knew of them before the "viacle" arrived to take them back to the station you will never dare to spend another week-end in a house where there may be a novelist of nine years. I am sure that when you left your bedroom this child stole in, examined every-
[xi]
