"Me," and my landlady simpered.
"I mean in the eating line," I explained.
Catnip, said his biographer, was his favourite weakness.
"Then get him a pennyworth of catnip and put it on my bill," I said benevolently. For I thought as she carried him off struggling, even a poor preface is cheap at a penny, and without Alonzo the Brave there would have been no preface, and without his heroic ancestor the Modest would never have had a chance!
I do hope this explains the following pages. I have not, like Alonzo's ancestor, strictly confined my observations to kings. I have, indeed, ventured to look at all sorts of things, many of them very sublime, and solemn and important, and some less so; and, as the following pages will prove, I have availed myself freely of the privilege of the Modest.
If the two greatest nations of the world have served me as "copy," it is because they are very near and dear, and the Modest, like more celebrated writers, have a way of using their nearest and dearest as "copy," especially their dearest.
In conclusion, I trust I have adequately explained, by help of Alonzo the Brave, that it is the privilege of the Modest to make observations about everything—whether anyone will ever read them, why—that's another matter.
A. E. L.
Kemptown, January, 1906.