book, and, turning over the pages, found
myself wondering how you will like it. It has been written in so many
different moods and places and noises and temperatures that the general
effect is rather patchwork. But, after all, it was written chiefly for
the amusement of two people, and (as I believe all story-books ought to
be written) out of some curiosity on the Author's part to know "what
happened next."

Thus, you see, I strive to disarm all critics at the outset by the
assumption of an ingenuous indifference to anything they can say. But
there is one portion of the book on which I have expended so much
thought and care that I am willing to defy criticism on the subject. I
refer to the Dedication.

You probably skip Dedications, but they interest me, and I have studied
them a good deal. They are generally arranged in columns like untidy
addition sums, and no two lines are the same length. This is very
important. At the end you arrive, as it were by a series of
stepping-stones, at the climax. And there you are.

No. Let the critics say what they will about the book: but I hold that
the Dedication is It.

Yours sincerely,

"Bartimeus"

_October_, 1917.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

CHAPTER

1. BACK FROM THE LAND
2. THE "NAVY SPECIAL"
3. ULTIMA THULE
4. WAR BABIES
5. UNCLE BILL
6. WET BOBS
7. CARRYING ON
8. "ARMA VIRUMQUE..."
9. "SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES"
10. THE BATTLE OF THE MIST
11. THE AFTERMATH
12. "GOOD HUNTING"
13. SPELL-O!
14. INTO THE WAY OF PEACE

NOTE

The Chapters headed "Wet Bobs" and
"Carrying On" appeared originally in
Blackwood's Magazine and are included in
the book by kind permission of the Editor.

THE LONG TRICK

CHAPTER I

BACK FROM THE LAND

Towards eight o'clock the fog that had hung threateningly over the City
all the afternoon descended like a pall.

It was a mild evening in February, and inside the huge echoing vault of
King's Cross station the shaded arc lamps threw little pools of light
along the departure platform where the Highland Express stood. The
blinds of the carriage windows were already drawn, but here and there a
circle of subdued light strayed out and was engulfed almost at once by
the murky darkness. Sounds out of the unseen reached the ear muffled and
confused: a motor horn hooted near the entrance, and quite close at hand
a horse's hoofs clattered and rang on the cobbled paving-stones.