So when Pete Corcoran spoke about our tie, was that what was in his
mind, we wondered? Did he _infer_ the existence of that spot, even
though he did not see it? And did he therefore look down upon, or
otherwise feel inclined to belittle our tie? If that were the case,
we felt that we really owed it to ourself to tell the story of the
tie, how we bought it, and why; and just why that tie is to us not
merely a strip of rather gaudy neckwear, but a symbol of an
enchanting experience, a memory and token of an epoch in our life,
the sign and expression of a certain feeling that can never come
again--and, indeed (as the sequel will show), that should not have
come when it did.

It was a bright morning, last November, in Gloversville, New York,
when we bought that tie. Now an explanation of just why we bought
that tie, and what we were doing in Gloversville, cannot possibly be
put into a paragraph, at any rate the kind of paragraph that Will
Howe (who used to be a professor of English) would approve. On the
whole, rather than rewrite the entire narrative, tersely, we will
have to postpone the dénouement (of the story, not the tie) until
to-morrow. This is an exhibition of the difficulty of telling
anything exactly. There are so many subsidiary considerations that
beg for explanation. Please be patient, Pete, and to-morrow we will
explain that tie in detail.


II

It was a bright and transparent cold morning in Gloversville, N.Y.,
November, 1919, and passing out of the Kingsborough Hotel we set off
to have a look at the town. And if we must be honest, we were in