The Sleep Eaters [antikvár]

Chapter IIt happened for the first time on the night of May the eighteenth. The date was set for me because of Strong's letter that morning. It had occupied my mind all day, giving a mixture of excitement and a feeling of dissatisfaction for myself, even a little uneasiness.For twenty-five years I have been writing stories for boys in comics, magazines and in book form. Even while I flew for four years in the raf during the last war, I managed to keep up a certain flow of stories, and a cartoonist pilot had pictured me for the flight hut wall with an aeroplane in one hand and a typewriter in the other, with a scroll below bearing my supposed motto, 'Nil desperan-dumpass the Buck.' That day Strong had proposed in his letter that I should write my autobiography, saying, T discussed it with my partners, and the reminiscences with which you regale us on your visits to London seem to us to have possibilities in a wider market, therefore . . .'At the outset of this story it is essential that I be honest. I know perfectly well that I shall be accused of lies and invention as befits the ranging mind of one constantly touring mental space to find new, more exciting, more incredible adventures for my stories. One does get into the habit of living in fiction to a certain extent. \^ile in the fictional world of his own creation, the writer is there, in it, with his characters. He does not stand outside a glass case and report the antics of dolls inside; he goes in and lives in it with his fantastic people.There is also the point that the fiction writer, while living in a false world with his characters, is always conscious of the role of entertainer to an audience of readers. Now this role of entertainer is not easy to drop. I was well aware on that day that some of the reminiscences which I had told Strong might not have been true. Anything for a good story; almost anything for a laugh.What happened to me extending over the period from May eighteenth to now is far beyond anything that I have invented, though in some ways it could be identified with7