Mr. EDMUND GOSSE contributes a foreword to the present volume, in which he draws a pathetic picture of the author, still unconquerably young, despite his years, facing the future with only one fear, that of the unemployment to which his increasing deafness, and the break-up of the world as it was before the War, seemed to be condemning him.

Locker room talk is both sports talk and dirty talk. Men compete with one another (thus the sports talk), but they control the anxieties associated with competition by downgrading the prize they all want—women.

What luck that Mr. Romeo still gripped and twisted and cracked that crooked cricoid as X-rayed by the firemen and mountain guides in the street.

Next he called on Paul Leblond, the shoemender he had visited before. As with Madame Vauclin, his return had been eagerly awaited and, again, he showed the list. The shoemender knew others, he said, who would be well placed to help: […]