ing for me round the corner, but I know that
too, now.

I will tell you about it.

To begin with, let me describe myself. I am an ordinary quiet-living
obscure person, neither exalted nor lowly, who, having tired of town,
took a little place in the country and there settled down to a life of
placidity, varied by such inroads upon ease as all back-to-the-landers
know: now a raid on the chickens by a fox, whose humour it is not to
devour but merely to decapitate; now the disappearance of the gardener
at Lord Derby's coat-tails; now a flood; and now and continually a
desire on the part of the cook to give a month's notice, if you please,
and the consequent resumption of correspondence with the registry
office. There you have the main lines of the existence not only of
myself, but of thousands of other English rural recluses. But for such
little difficulties I have been happy--a Cincinnatus ungrumbling.

The new fly entered the ointment about three weeks ago, when a parcel
was brought to me by a footman from the Priory, some three miles away,
with a message to the effect that it had been delivered there and opened
in error. They were of course very sorry.

I asked how the mistake had occurred.

"Same name," he said. "The house has just been let furnished to some
people of the same name as yourself."

Now I have always rather prided myself on the rarity of my name. I don't
go so far as to claim that it came over with the Conqueror, but it is an
old name and an uncommon one, and hitherto I had been the only owner of
it in the district. To have it duplicated was annoying.

Worse however was to come.

I do not expect to be believed, but it is a solemn fact that within a
fortnight two more bearers of my name moved into the village. One was a
cowman, and the other a maiden lady, so that at the present moment there
are four of us all opening or rejecting each other's letters. The thing
is absurd. One might as well be named Smith right away.

I don't mind the cowman, but the maiden lady is a large order. I have,
as I say, lived in this place for some time--at least six years--and she
moved into The Laurels only ten days ago, but when she came round this
morning with an opened telegram that was not meant for her, she had the
maiden--ladylikehood to remark how awkward it was when other people had
the same name as herself. "There should," she said, "never be more than
one holder of a name in a small place."

I had no retor