Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/83

 Box. Rudyard Kipling has mentioned, in A Diversity of Creatures, the sublime brother-*hood to whom this book is a second Bible.

"I remembered," [he writes in The Vortex], "a certain Joseph Finsbury who delighted the Tregonwell Arms with nine  versions of a single income of two hundred pounds, placing the imaginary person in—but I could not recall the list of towns further than 'London, Paris, Bagdad, and Spitzbergen.' This last I must have murmured aloud, for the Agent-General suddenly became human and went on: 'Bus-*soran, Heligoland, and the Scilly Islands'—'What?' growled Penfentenyou. 'Nothing,' said the Agent-General, squeezing my hand affectionately. 'Only we have just found out that we are brothers I've got it. 'Brighton, Cincinnati and Nijni-Novgorod!' God bless " One of the greatest living authorities on The Wrong Box was a member of the Reform Club; and, on joining, Teixeira found it necessary to his self-protection to study the most aptly-quoted work in the world.

My invitation was couched in the cryptic terms of the brotherhood: