I pondered upon these considerations for a long while. I saw only one way out, and, at last, circumstances appearing to conspire to lead me into that way, I wrote a letter to my Board of Directors and resigned my editorial post. I had decided to abandon London, that delectable paradise of my youthful desires. A To-let notice flourished suddenly in my front-garden, and my world became aware that I was going to desert it. The majority thought me rash and unwise, and predicted an ignominious return to Fleet Street. But the minority upheld my resolution. I reached down a map of England, and said that I must live on a certain main-line at a certain minimum distance from London. This fixed the neighbourhood of my future home. The next thing was to find that home, and with the aid of friends and a bicycle I soon found it. One fine wet day I stole out of London in a new quest of romance. No one seemed to be fundamentally disturbed over my exodus. I remarked to myself: "Either you are a far-seeing and bold fellow, or you are a fool. Time will show which." And that night I slept, or failed to sleep, in a house that was half a mile from the next house, three miles from a station, and three miles from a town. I had left the haunts of men with a vengeance, and incidentally I had left a regular income. I ran over the list of our foremost writers: they nearly all lived in the country. XVI When I had settled down into the landscape, bought my live-stock, studied manuals on horses, riding, driving, hunting, dogs, poultry, and wildflowers, learned to distinguish between wheat and barley and between a six-year-old and an aged screw, shot a sparrow on the fence only to find it was a redbreast, drunk the cherry-brandy of the Elizabethan inn, played in the village cricket team, and ceased to feel self-conscious in riding-breeches, I perceived with absolute certainty that I had made no error; I knew that, come poverty or the riches of Indian short stories, I should never again live permanently in London. I expanded, and in my expansion I felt rather sorry for Londoners. I perceived, too, that the country possessed commercial advantages which I had failed to appreciate before. When you live two and a half miles from a railway you can cut a dash on an income which in London spells omnibus instead of cab. For myself I have a profound belief in the efficacy of cutting a dash. You invite an influential friend down for the week-end. You meet him at the station with a nice little grey mare in a phaeton, and an unimpeachable Dalmatian running behind. The turn-out is nothing alone, but the pedigree printed in the pinkiness of that dog's chaps and in the exiguity of his tail, spotted to the last inch, would give tone to a coster's cart. You see that your influential friend wishes to comment, but as you gather up the reins you carefully begin to talk about the weather and prices per thousand. You rush him home in twelve minutes, skimming gate posts.