E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
"Bartimeus" is the pseudonym of Captain Lewis Anselm da Costa
Ritchie, R.N.
by
Author of "A Tall Ship," "Naval Occasions," etc.
"Much of what you have done, as far as the public eye is concerned, may almost be said to have been done in the twilight."—Extract from address delivered by the Prime Minister on board the Fleet Flagship, Aug., 1915.
Cassell and Company, Ltd
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
First Published. October 1917.
Reprinted (Twice) October 1917, November 1917.
TO
one
CHUNKS
Who, in moments of frenzy, is called
HUNKS
and answers readily to
TUNKS, TINKS or TONKS,
This Book
is
INSCRIBED
This is the first opportunity I have had of answering your letter,although I am hardly to blame since you chose to write anonymously andleave me with no better clue to your address than the Tunbridge Wellspostmark.
Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum! I am sorry about Torps, though. I admit hisdeath was a mistake, and I fancy my Publisher thought so too: but wecannot very well bring him to life again, like Sherlock Holmes. Soplease cheer up, and remember that there are just as many fine fellowsin the ink-pot as ever came out of it.
I have borne in mind the final paragraph of your letter, which said,"We do beseech you not to kill the India-rubber Man." In fact, Ioriginally meant him to be the hero of this book. But as the bookprogressed I found the melancholy conviction growing on me that theIndia-rubber Man had become infernally dull. A pair of cynicalbachelors like you will, I know, attribute this to marriage and poorBetty. For my part I am inclined to put it down to advancing years.
I have just finished the book, and, turning over the pages, foundmyself wondering how you will like it. It has been written in so manydifferent moods and places and noises and temperatures that the generaleffect is rather patchwork. But, after all, it was written chiefly forthe amusement of two people, and (as I believe all story-books ought tobe written) out of some curiosity on the Author's part to know "whathappened next."
Thus, you see, I strive to disarm all critics at the outset by theassumption of an ingenuous indifference to anything they can say. Butthere is one portion of the book on which I have expended so muchthought and care that I am willing to defy criticism on the subject. Irefer to the Dedication.
You probably skip Dedications, but they interest me, and I have studiedthem a good deal. They are generally arranged in columns like untidyaddition sums, and no two lines are the same length. This is veryimportant. At the end you arrive, as it were by a series ofstepping-stones, at the climax. And there you are.
No. Let the critics say what they will about the book: but I hold thatthe Dedication is It.
Yours sincerely,
"Bartimeus"
October, 1917.