10 AN EXPLANATOKY STATEMENT 



time to insist that a man's mind should be like a good 

 hawk willing to have a flight at whatever game was put 

 up for him. I despised no one more heartily than the man 

 who, when asked an opinion about something strange or 

 new or difficult , put his hands deeper into his pockets and 

 said either that the question was not in his period, or else 

 that this or that subject was not his job. 



I specially delighted in sporting attempts to do something 

 which, properly speaking, I could not do and so ought not 

 to have attempted. My argument for having a shot at any- 

 thing and everything ran on this wise : " You may have a 

 bit of luck and force people to say : ' By Jove ! the chap's 

 done it ! ' If this happens, how delightful ! You have won 

 when by all the rules you deserved to lose. So here goes. ' ' 



This, however, was not the only attraction to me of Mr. 

 Fisher Unwin's offer. Being on the staff of the Spectator, 

 I had got rather bored by the amount of jokes, diluted till 

 they contained no more than *0001 of wit-alcohol, about the 

 Spectator's dog stories. It was all very well when 

 Sir Owen Seaman made a charming poem in hexameters 

 about the Spectator stories and ended a line with so good a 

 dactyl and spondee as " fabulous bow-wows." As a rule, 

 however, the joke was worn very thin. Besides, I liked 

 the idea of not being afraid to own the soft impeachment 

 or to champion the dog stories as very good copy. I was 

 especially annoyed by the notion that the Spectator was 

 constantly taken in by practical jokers, who sent ridiculous 

 stories about impossible dogs and super-cats and canaries. 

 I knew that the letters were perfectly authentic. That 

 being so, I was glad to break a lance in defence of the 

 Spectator's discretion and to champion the veracity of its 

 correspondents. 



