"There's no book like it," said A. "Get it at once."

"You must read Dash," said B.

"If you take my advice," said C., "and you know I'm not easily pleased by modern fiction, you'll get Dash and simply peg away till you've finished it. It's marvellous."

"I suppose you've read Darnock's Dash?" said D. "It's by far his best thing."

At dinner my partner on each side gurglingly wished to know how I liked Dash, taking it for granted that I knew it more or less by heart.

So having read some of Darnock's earlier work and thought it good, I acquired a copy of Dash and settled down to it.

I had not read more than two pages when it occurred to me that I ought to know what the other books in the library parcel were; so I went to look at them. One was a series of episodes in the career of a wonderful blind policeman who, in spite of his infirmity, performed prodigies of tact on point duty, and by the time I had finished glancing through this it was bed-time. I put Dash under my arm, for I always read for half-an-hour or so in bed. How it happened I cannot imagine, but when I picked up the book and began to read I found, much to my surprise, that it was the other library novel.

"Have you begun Dash yet?" B. asked me at lunch.

"Oh, yes, rather," I said.

"I envy you," he replied. "How far have you got?"

"Not very far yet," I said.

"It's fine, isn't it?" he remarked.

"Fine."

The next evening I had just taken up Dash again when I remembered that that other novel must be finished if it was to be changed on the morrow, so I turned dutifully to that instead. It was a capital story about a criminal who murdered people in an absolutely undetectable way by lending them a poisoned pencil which would not mark until the point was moistened. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The next evening I was getting on famously with the fifth page of Dash when the library parcel again arrived, containing two new books for those I had returned in the morning.

Meeting C. the next day he asked me if I did not think Dash the finest thing I had ever read.

I said yes, but asked him if he had not found it a little difficult to get into.

"Possibly," he said, "possibly. But what a reward!"

"You like books all in long conversations?" I asked.

"I love Dash," he said, "anyway."

"Did you read every word?" I asked.

"Well, not perhaps every word," he replied, "but I got the sense of every page. I read like that, you know—synthetically."

"Yes, of course," I said.

The next day I changed the two library books that were finished for two more, but it was Dash which I took up first. There is no doubt about its being a very remarkable book, but I had had a rather heavy day and my brain was not at its best. What extraordinary novels people do write nowadays! Fancy making a whole book, as the author of Hot Maraschino has done, out of the Elberfeldt talking horses! In this book, which has an excellent murder in a stable in it, the criminal is given away by a horse who tells her master (it is a mare) what she saw. I couldn't lay the story down.

That night I dined out and heard more about Dash. In fact, I myself started one long conversation on that topic with an idle lady who really had read every word. I went on to recommend it right and left. "You must read Dash," I said at intervals; "it's extraordinarily good."

"Some one was telling me he couldn't get on with it at all," said one of my partners.

"Not really?" I said, and clicked my tongue reproachfully.

"Yes, he says it's so involved and rambling."

"Ah, well," I said, "one must persevere. Books mustn't be too easy. For my part——Yes, champagne, please."

"I'll get it, anyway," she said. "I feel sure your judgment is sound."

Looking in at the club later I found D. playing snooker. After missing an easy shot he turned the talk to Dash.

"Tip-top, isn't it?" he said.

"Which is your favourite chapter?" I asked.

His face told me I had him.

"Oh, well, that's difficult to say," he replied.

"Surely you think that one about the stevedore's spaniel, towards the end, is terrific?" I said.

"Of course that's fine," he replied, "but I was just wondering whether——"

But I didn't stop to listen. There is no stevedore and no spaniel in the whole book, as I had carefully ascertained.

The next day I had A., B. and C. with the same device.

Meanwhile I am plodding away with Dash. I have now reached page 27. A great book, as all agree. But the books that I shall read while I am reading it will make a most interesting list.