I am indebted to several friends for notes, observations, and correspondence on this subject, more especially to one, referred to as Z., and to another as Q., who have obtained a considerable number of reliable histories for me, and have also supplied many valuable notes …. Other obligations are mentioned in the text.

By then, of course, we and the book are in a sorry state, / scuffed and grubby and having been used / often for purposes not strictly intended, / from doorstop to lavatory-paper, / and ended up in a knacker's yard. / I'm in the knacker's yard. Have been for a while … / and, really, there are worse places to be.

What's interesting is ambiguity. What's interesting is the haziness, the blurrings, the undefinables, the space and tension between people, the area between the margins that pushes us to stop, to question.

Later accounts have brought the story into discredit.