…would turn over a new leaf and live like respectable people. But what we wanted was five hundred pounds. If we had that sum we could retire to the country and run a farm. Jim liked an outdoor life, and I loved animals, so we thought a farm would suit us down to the ground.”Well, it was my turn first. Biding my time I, at last, saw a safe opportunity. I mingled with a crowd of well-dressed ladies at a benevolent bazaar in the West End, and came home with five nice fat purses — close on a hundred and fifty pounds in hard cash. Not bad, was it? I banked the money, and Jim, being a man of honour, told me that would do, and that I must now definitely retire on my laurels — a feat which he hoped soon to accomplish himself.One day Jim came to me…

…Soon after getting into bed one night (in January, 1908), I fell into a deep, blank sleep, from which I was abruptly torn to find myself at the entrance to a forest, a forest I knew, by sight, only too well. It was the forest of Trouble, and, willy-nilly, I had to enter it. On all sides, leviathan trees of the blackest ebony shot up hundreds of feet heavenwards, permitting only the feeblest rays of light to penetrate through their forked branches. What species of trees they were I do not know, for nothing I had seen outside my dreams resembled them. Their trunks were smooth, and in their mirror-like surfaces I could see reflected the workings of their innermost organs, whilst the rising and falling of their hollow voices was wafted down to me from on high, like the murmuring of wind from some mountain top. Nimble hands…