



Produced by Richard E. Henrich, Jr.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS


by

"SAKI" (H. H. MUNRO)



with an Introduction by A. A. MILNE




        TO THE LYNX KITTEN,
  WITH HIS RELUCTANTLY GIVEN CONSENT,
     THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY
            DEDICATED

H. H. M.

August, 1911




INTRODUCTION


There are good things which we want to share with the world and good
things which we want to keep to ourselves.  The secret of our favourite
restaurant, to take a case, is guarded jealously from all but a few
intimates; the secret, to take a contrary case, of our infallible
remedy for seasickness is thrust upon every traveller we meet, even if
he be no more than a casual acquaintance about to cross the Serpentine.
So with our books. There are dearly loved books of which we babble to a
neighbour at dinner, insisting that she shall share our delight in
them; and there are books, equally dear to us, of which we say nothing,
fearing lest the praise of others should cheapen the glory of our
discovery.  The books of "Saki" were, for me at least, in the second
class.

It was in the WESTMINSTER GAZETTE that I discovered him (I like to
remember now) almost as soon as he was discoverable.  Let us spare a
moment, and a tear, for those golden days in the early nineteen
hundreds, when there were five leisurely papers of an evening in which
the free-lance might graduate, and he could speak of his Alma Mater,
whether the GLOBE or the PALL MALL