Long Odds
For every honest reader there exist some half-dozen honest books, which he re-reads at regular intervals of six months or thereabouts. Whatever the demands on him, however alarming the arrears that gibber and grin in menacing row, for these he somehow generally manages to find time. Nay, as the years flit by, the day is only too apt to arrive when he reads no others at all; the hour will even come, in certain instances, when the number falls to five, to four—perhaps to three. With this same stride of time comes another practice too—that of formulating general principles to account for or excuse one's own line of action; and yet it ought not to be necessary to put forward preface or apology for finding oneself immersed in Treasure Island for about the twentieth time. The captain's capacities for the consumption of rum must always be a new delight and surprise; the approaching tap of the blind man's stick, the moment of breathless waiting in the dark and silent inn, are ever sure of their thrill; hence it came about that the other night I laid down the familiar book at the end of Part the Second—where vice and virtue spar a moment ere the close grip—with the natural if commonplace reflection that nineteen to six was good healthy odds.
But somehow I was in no hurry to take the book up again.
