The Riddle of the Sands

I Began To Take A Spurious Interest In The Remaining Five Millions And Wrote Several Clever Letters In A Vein Of Cheap Satire Indirectly Suggesting The Pathos Of My Position But Indicating That I Was Broad-Minded Enough To Find Intellectual Entertainment In The Scenes Persons And Habits Of London In The Dead Season. I Even Did Rational Things At The Instigation Of Others. For Though I Should Have Liked Total Isolation Best I Of Course Found That There Was A Sediment Of Unfortunates Like Myself Who Unlike Me Viewed The Situation In A Most Prosaic Light. There Were River Excursions And So On After Office-Hours; But I Dislike The River At Any Time For Its Noisy Vulgarity And Most Of All At This Season. So I Dropped Out Of The Fresh Air Brigade And Declined H—S Offer To Share A Riverside Cottage And Run Up To Town In The Mornings. I Did Spend One Or Two Week-Ends With The Catesbys In Kent; But I Was Not Inconsolable When They Let Their House And Went Abroad For I Found That Such Partial Compensations Did Not Suit Me. Neither Did The Taste For Satirical Observation Last.