Chapter one: How Our Story Begins. Arthur and his godmother are sitting in the sitting room. This is England, mind you, turn of the last century. Or why else Arthur? Then: The Ring. And now we have a plot. Arthur has recently broken off his engagement with Dolores, whose lithium addiction has proved an insurmountable obstacle to their prospective marriage. A shame, truly. Yet A Greater Concern occupies his mind – he has already bequeathed his grandmother’s engagement ring. He is unsure what to do. And so he seeks the advice of his godmother, a close personal friend despite the difference in age. In Testing the Waters, set over lukewarm tea so as to give full ironic force to the clichéd metaphor, he seeks to determine her opinion of his actions before requesting such advice outright. With his failure to do so comes Crumpets, a similarly ambiguous metaphor of a title. As they sit with their comestibles, Little is Said from which he can glean an impression of her thoughts. For which reason, perhaps, he proposes that they go for a walk. In Walking, he slowly loosens the strings of her thought until he thinks he has grasped her intentions. Then, finally, in The Truth Comes Out, she offers her thoughts voluntarily. All his anxieties have been for naught! Or so he thinks, until A Talking-To, in which everything he has expected is proved wrong. Finally comes Redemption, which is in some senses A False Redemption.
But that is A Story for Another Time.
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