THIS LONDON ITS TAVERNS, HAUNTS AND MEMORIES by R. THURSTON HOPKINS...TO CECIL PLAYER Your name stands as the publishers imprint on this book, and to the casual eye this indicates that it com- mercially belongs to you. And so it does. But apart from the imprint the merchandize of it is more surely yours than any publishers contract could ever set forth in cold black and white, for it is merchandize that has passed from author to publisher over a great, calm sea of friendship. But the book itself is of no importance. It is just a thing finished that was a pleasure to make. If I still thinlc of it with pleasure it is because you so often have been swaggering through its chapters . . . you, my friend of many years, who have so often explored the London haunts and taverns with me. This is its value, that it is yet another link between us. It is one more adventure that we have shared. Do you remember, Cecil, the night when we set out from Brighton to walk a mad night walk in South Country....