{"product_id":"2940013392274","title":"JAFFERY","description":"CHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI received a letter the day before yesterday from my old friend, Jaffery\u003cbr\u003eChayne, which has inspired me to write the following account of that\u003cbr\u003edear, bull-headed, Pantagruelian being. I must say that I have been\u003cbr\u003eegged on to do so by my wife, of whom hereafter. A man of my somewhat\u003cbr\u003eurbane and dilettante temperament does not do these things without being\u003cbr\u003eworried into them. I had the inspiration, however. I told Barbara (my\u003cbr\u003ewife), and she agreed, at the time, dutifully, that I ought to record\u003cbr\u003eour friend Jaffery's doings. But now, womanlike, she declares that the\u003cbr\u003efirst suggestion, the root germ of the idea, came from her; that the\u003cbr\u003e\"egging on\" is merely the vain man's way of misdefining a woman's serene\u003cbr\u003einsistence; that she has given me, out of her intimate knowledge, all\u003cbr\u003ethe facts of the story--although Jaffery Chayne and Adrian Boldero and\u003cbr\u003epoor Tom Castleton, and others involved in the imbroglio, counted\u003cbr\u003ethemselves as my bosom cronies, while she, poor wretch (a man must get\u003cbr\u003ehome somewhere), was in the nursery; and that, finally, if she had been\u003cbr\u003etaught English grammar and spelling at school, she would have dispensed\u003cbr\u003eentirely with my pedantic assistance and written the story herself.\u003cbr\u003eAnyhow, man-like, I am broad minded enough to proclaim that it doesn't\u003cbr\u003every much matter. Man and wife are one. She thinks they are one wife. I\u003cbr\u003eknow they are one husband. Between speculation and knowledge why so\u003cbr\u003efutile a thing as a quarrel? I proceed therefore to my originally\u003cbr\u003eself-appointed and fantastic task.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut on reflection, before beginning, I must honestly admit that if it\u003cbr\u003ehad not been for Barbara I should write of these things with\u003cbr\u003ehalf-knowledge. Sex is a queer and incalculable solvent of human\u003cbr\u003econfidence. There are certain revelations that men will make only to a\u003cbr\u003eman, certain revelations likewise that women will make only to a man. On\u003cbr\u003ethe other hand, a woman is told things by her sister women and her\u003cbr\u003ebrother men which, but for her, would never reach a man's ears. So by\u003cbr\u003ecombining the information obtained from our family encyclopædia under\u003cbr\u003ethe feminine heading of China with that obtained under the masculine\u003cbr\u003eheading of Philosophy, I can, figuratively speaking, like the famous\u003cbr\u003estudent, issue my treatise on Chinese Philosophy.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47082698375408,"sku":"2940013392274","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013392274_p0.jpg?v=1763580319","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013392274","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}