PR0L0GUE
IN THE FIRST PLACE PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT I do not expect you tobelieve this story. Nor could you wonder had you witnessed a recentexperience of mine when, in the armor of blissful and stupendousignorance, I gaily narrated the gist of it to a Fellow of the RoyalGeological Society on the occasion of my last trip to London.
You would surely have thought that I had been detected in no lessa heinous crime than the purloining of the Crown Jewels from theTower, or putting poison in the coffee of His Majesty the King.