INTR0DUCTI0N

GENTLE READER: - Let me make you acquainted with my book,"Back Home." (Your right arm, Book, your right arm. Pity's sakes!How many times have I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward,shoulders back and down, and turn your toes out more.)

It is a little book, Gentle Reader, but please don't let thatprejudice you against it. The General Public, I know, likes to feelheft in its hand when it buys a book, but I had hoped that youwere a peg or two above the General Public. That mythical beinggoes on a reading spree about every so occasionally, and it selects a bookwhich will probably last out the craving, a book which "it will beimpossible to lay down, after it is once begun, until it isfinished." (I quote from the standard book notice). A few hours laterthe following dialogue ensues: