Not being very handy with the pen, I am speaking this to a certain young person who is writing it down for me. I have to set my thoughts in order. This is very difficult. When I was arrested in Geneva for not wearing britches, though that was not my fault, I had a similar difficulty. I am a convivial man, fond of a glass of beer and a smoke and a yarn, and reckoned a capital teller of tall stories—Strange Passengers I Have Known, The Spook of the Brenner Pass, The Drunk Nun, My Experiences in the Regiment, all that kind of thing. But when I was sat down in a chilly cell, with chains around my ankles, and made to spin out the tale of my unhappy mishap with the sausages and the drinking-trough to an old person with a squint and a sniff who had to set them all down for the benefit of the court, I found it very trying. Likewise now. As it is, the young person has just told me to get on with it and stop wasting time. But I should like to know, how do you start? It seems to me that a story needs winding up a bit, like a clock, to set it going properly.

I’ll start again. Try this:

I have a great admiration for Miss Davenport. She is a lady of great force and spirit. But being so forceful of character—her, I mean—I was not able to reason with her and convince her that it was not a good idea for me to go up to the castle.

It wasn’t a good idea because I am not very skillful at jobs like that which require a smooth tongue and an artful manner. My master, Doctor Cadaverezzi, he’d have done it—he was as artful as a bottle of goblins. I remember how he got out of jail, when we became acquainted. I never saw anything like it in my life. What he did was—

The young person is very stern. I have to get on, she says.

Like I should have done then. But didn’t, on account of the idea I had, when I’d gone a little way up the road toward the castle.