Chapter VIIN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF HIS READER "But come," I imagine some reader complaining, "isn't it high time for something to happen?" No doubt it is, but what am I to do? I am no less discontented. Is it not even more to my interest than to the reader's for something to happen? Here have I been tramping along since breakfast-time, and now it is late in the afternoon, but never a feather of her dove's wings, never a flutter of her angel's robes have I seen. It is disheartening, for one naturally expects to find anything we seek a few minutes after starting out to seek it, and I confess that I expected to find my golden mistress within a very few hours of leaving home. However, had that been the case, there would have been no story, as the novelists say, and I trust, as he goes on, the reader may feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides, with that prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to fill the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old Surrey town, little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one of which I have much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner. Next 
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