It has become the fashion among novelists to introduce their hero in knee pants, their heroine in pinafore and pigtails.
In extreme cases we have been obliged to witness his evolution from swaddling clothes to dresses, from dress.
Now we are led, protesting, up to a grubby urchin of five and are invited to watch him through twenty years of intimate minutiae.
Time was when we were rushed up to a stalwart young man of twenty-four, who was presented as the pivot about whom the plot would revolve.
It has become the fashion among novelists to introduce their hero in knee pants, their heroine in pinafore and pigtails