ne Sitting in a High Place_ 109

PART THREE: LOVER'S LEAP
_Being a Series of Extracts Culled from the
Diary of Dr. Fibble_ 203

_ILLUSTRATIONS_

Momentarily the articles that filled my arms
and hung on my shoulders and back grew more
cumbersome and burdensome Frontispiece

PAGE
May I ask whether you are going to a fancy
dress party somewhere? 42

Until he loomed almost above my kneeling form 94

"I," she said, "am Major Jones" 132

From its depths I extracted the parting gifts
bestowed upon me by my Great-Aunt Paulina 176

"Say coo-coo clearly and distinctly and keep
on saying it until I call out 'Enough'" 234

To be exact, I kissed at her 268

_PART ONE_

_Being a Card to the Public from the Pen of the Rev. Roscoe Titmarsh
Fibble, D.D._

_Fibble, D.D._

_The Young Nuts of America_

IT is with a feeling of the utmost reluctance, amounting--if I may use
so strong a word--to distress, that I take my pen in hand to indite the
exceedingly painful account which follows; yet I feel I owe it not only
to myself and the parishioners of St. Barnabas', but to the community at
large, to explain in amplified detail why I have withdrawn suddenly,
automatically as it were, from the organisation of youthful forest
rangers of which I was, during its brief existence, the actuating
spirit, and simultaneously have resigned my charge to seek a field of
congenial endeavour elsewhere.

My first inclination was to remain silent; to treat with dignified
silence the grossly exaggerated statements that lately obtained
circulation, and, I fear me, credence, in some quarters, regarding the
circumstances which have inspired me in taking the above steps.
Inasmuch, however, as there has crept into the public prints hereabout a
so-called item or article purporting to describe divers of my recent
lamentable experiences--an item which I am constrained to believe the
author thereof regarded as being of a humorous character, but in which
no right-minded person could possibly see aught to provoke mirth--I have
abandoned my original resolution and shall now lay bare the true facts.

In part my motive for so do