"Thanks for your letter, old man, but you forgot to enclose the cheque."
Why did I forget the cheque? Because I did not want to pay up. Consciously I did want to pay, for I wrote out the cheque all right, but my unconscious did not want to pay, and it was my unconscious that made me slip the cheque under the blotter.
Last summer I was invited to spend the week-end with some people at Stanmore. I did not want to go; a previous week-end with them had been most boring. However, I reluctantly consented to go out on the Saturday morning. When Saturday morning came I was not very much surprised to find that I had forgotten to put out my boots to be cleaned the night before.
"It looks as if I weren't keen on this trip," I said to myself.
I went down to Baker Street and got into the train. We stopped at many stations, and after an hour's journey I began to wonder what was wrong. I asked another man in the compartment when we were due at Stanmore, and he looked surprised.
"Why," he said, "you're on the wrong line; you ought to have changed at
Harrow."
I got out at the next station and found that I had an hour to wait for the return train to Harrow. As I sat on the platform I took from my pocket my host's letter.
"Remember," it ran, "to change at Harrow," and the words were underlined.
I arrived four hours late . . . and spent a pleasant week-end.
One night I was dining out in London, and I told my host the new theory of forgetting.