"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----"