The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (6.1895)

Long Odds

By Kenneth Grahame

or every honest reader there exist some half-dozen honest


L 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 formu-
lating 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 common-
place reflection that nineteen to six was good healthy odds.
But somehow I was in no hurry to take the book up again.

The