from 'The Irish R.M. and his Experiences' by E.E. Somerville and Martin Ross
Read by Denis Johnston
(From Northern Ireland)

Edith Enone Somerville met her third cousin, Violet Florence Martin, for the first time one January day in 1886. One of the cousins was then twenty-four, the other twenty. The two girls quickly became close friends, and at their second or third meeting Miss Somerville suggested that they should write a novel together. The result was 'An Irish Cousin', published in 1889 as the work of 'Geilles Herring and Martin Ross'. But Miss Somerville soon discarded her pseudonym, and it is as 'Somerville and Ross' that the pair became famous.
The first batch of 'Irish R.M.' stories - the work by which they are best known - originally appeared in the Badminton Magazine in 1898. 'Further Experiences of an Irish R.M.' came out in 1908, and a third collection, 'In Mr. Knox's Country' in 1915. It was the last product of this remarkable collaboration, for 'Martin Ross' died the same year.