My dear Bob: In dedicating this book to you, I do more than follow theselfish impulse of pleasing myself. It was you who warned me that noneof the usual fiction-labels would fit "H. R." To irritate the reader bycompelling him to think in order to understand was, you told me, bothunfair and unwise. But a writer occasionally may be permitted to pleasehimself, and if his experiment fails there remains the satisfaction ofhaving tried. I have not labelled my jokes explicitly nor have I writtena single foot-note in the middle of a page. I have endeavored toreproduce a recognizable atmosphere by intentionally exaggeratingcertain phases of the attitude of New York toward the eternal verities.Not even for purposes of contrast have I felt bound to have a nicecharacter in the book. But if the reader fails to get what you soclearly understood, and if the critics point out how completely I havefailed to write a Satirical Romance of To-day, I can at least makecertain of having one line in this volume with which none may findfault. And that, Great and Good Friend, is the line at the top of thispage.