1. Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor At Lympne
As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the blue sky of
southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation
in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest
accident. It might have been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought
myself removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to
Lympne because I had imagined it the most uneventful place in the world. "Here, at any
rate," said I, "I shall find peace and a chance to work!"
And this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is destiny with all the little plans of
men. I may perhaps mention here that very recently I had come an ugly cropper in certain
business enterprises. Sitting now surrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there is a
luxury in admitting my extremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my disasters
were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are directions in which I have some
capacity, but the conduct of business operations is not among these. But in those days I
was young, and my youth among other objectionable forms took that of a pride in my
capacity for affairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have happened to me
have rubbed something of the youth from my mind. Whether they have brought any
wisdom to light below it is a more doubtful matter.
It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations that landed me at
Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even about business transactions there is a strong spice of
adventure. I took risks. In these things there is invariably a certain amount of give and
take, and it fell to me finally to do the giving. Reluctantly enough. Even when I had got
out of everything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant. Perhaps you have
met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps you have only felt it. He ran me
hard. It seemed to me, at last, that there was nothing for it but to write a play, unless I
wanted to drudge for my living as a clerk. I have a certain imagination, and luxurious
tastes, and I meant to make a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. In
addition to my belief in my powers as a business man, I had always in those days had an
idea that I was equal to writing a very good play. It is not, I believe, a very uncommon
persuasion. I knew there is nothing a man can do outside legitimate business transactions
that has such opulent possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I had,
indeed, got into the habit of regarding this unwritten drama as a convenient little reserve
put by for a rainy day. That rainy day had come, and I set to work.
I soon discovered that writing a play was a longer business than I had supposed; at first I
had reckoned ten days for it, and it was to have a pied-a-terre while it was in hand that I
came to Lympne. I reckoned myself lucky in getting that little bungalow. I got it on a
three years' agreement. I put in a few sticks of furniture, and while the play was in hand I
did my own cooking. My cooking would have shocked Mrs. Bond. And yet, you know, it
had flavour. I had a coffee-pot, a sauce-pan for eggs, and one for potatoes, and a frying-
pan for sausages and bacon - such was the simple apparatus of my comfort. One cannot
