THE CLICKING OF CUTHBERT     

       By P. G. Wodehouse     

       1922     

     

       DEDICATION     

       TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF     

       JOHN HENRIE AND PAT ROGIE     

       WHO AT EDINBURGH IN THE YEAR 1593 A.D.     

       WERE IMPRISONED FOR     

       "PLAYING OF THE GOWFF ON THE LINKS OF LEITH     

       EVERY SABBATH THE TIME OF THE SERMONSES",     

       ALSO OF ROBERT ROBERTSON WHO GOT IT IN THE NECK     

       IN 1604 A.D. FOR THE SAME REASON     

  

  

       FORE!     

       This book marks an epoch in my literary career. It is written in blood. It is the outpouring of a soul as deeply seared by Fate's unkindness as the fairway on the dog-leg hole of the second nine was ever seared by my iron. It is the work of a very nearly desperate man, an eighteen-handicap man who has got to look extremely slippy if he doesn't want to find himself in the twenties again.     

       As a writer of light fiction, I have always till now been handicapped by the fact that my disposition was cheerful, my heart intact, and my 

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