The Courtship of Morrice Buckler by A.E.W. Mason

It was on the sixth day of June that I arrived in London from Cumberland; it was on the sixteenth of July that I landed at Calais; and so much that was new and bewildering to me had happened within this brief interspace of time, that I cannot wonder how little I understood of all which it portended. For here was I, accustomed to solitude, with small knowledge of men and a veritable fear of women, plumped of a sudden amidst the gayest company of the town, where thought and wit were struck out of converse sharply as sparks from a flint not reached by my slow methods, which, to carry on my simile, more resembled the practice of the Indians who produce fire, so travellers tell, by the laborious attrition of stick upon stick.

From Calais I journeyed to Paris, where I stayed until a bill of exchange upon some French merchants, which I had asked Elmscott to procure for me, came to hand, With it was enclosed a letter from my cousin and yet another from Jack Larke.