I have sympathy for the butler in The Big Sleep. Marlowe detects him in a contradiction and asks him aggressively, "You made a mistake, didn't you?" To which the man replies, sadly and sweetly, "I make many mistakes, sir." And so do I. I am, by instinct and training, a very specific writer, and so my errors are numerous. Recent ones include misspelling Geoffrey Madan's name —I phoned the printers with a correction but my page had already gone to press — and crediting Richard Tauber with Donald Peers's signature-tune, "By a babbling brook" (Tauber's, of course, was "You are my heart's delight"). I apologise for these mistakes, and for others in the past, and for those to come.

　　我同情《长眠》这部影片中的男管家。马洛探长发现了他讲话前后有矛盾，就逼问道：“你犯了一个错，对不?”管家伤感而乖巧地答曰：“我犯下的错可多去啦，先生。” 我又何尝不是如此呢?我有点灵气并且训练有素，写起东西来旁征博引，力求翔实，自然就言多语失喽。最近犯下的错误包括把杰弗瑞·马丹的名字拼写错了——我给印厂打了个电话，把更正告诉他们，可是我的那页已经开印了;我把唐纳德·皮尔斯的信号曲“在潺潺的小溪旁”安到了理查德·陶波的头上(陶波的信号曲自然是“你是我心中的喜悦”。)对于这些错误，以及过去犯的错误和今后会犯的错误，在下这厢有礼啦。