Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) A CHILD OF THE JAGO BY ARTHUR MORRISON AUTHOR OF 'TALES OF MEAN STREETS' THIRD EDITION METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON 1897 TO ARTHUR OSBORNE JAY VICAR OF HOLY TRINITY, SHOREDITCH _... Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!..._ _Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar:_ _Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it._ _Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?--_ EZEKIEL xiii. 3 ... 10 12. * * * * * PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION I am glad to take this, the first available opportunity, to acknowledge the kindness with which _A Child of the Jago_ has been received: both by the reading public, from which I have received many gratifying assurances that what I have tried to say has not altogether failed of its effect: and by the reviewers, the most of whom have written in very indulgent terms. I think indeed, that I am the more gratified by the fact that this reception has not been unanimous: because an outcry and an opposition, even from an unimportant minority, are proofs that I have succeeded in saying, however imperfectly, something that was worth being said. Under the conditions of life as we know it there is no truth worth telling that will not interfere with some hearer's comfort. Various objections have been made to _A Child of the Jago_, and many of them had already been made to _Tales of Mean Streets_. And it has been the way of the objectors as well as the way of many among the kindest of my critics, to call me a 'realist.' The word has been used sometimes, it would seem, in praise; sometimes in mere indifference as one uses a phrase of convenient description; sometimes by way of an irremediable reproach. It is natural, then, not merely that I should wish to examine certain among the objections made to my work, but that I should feel some interest in the definition and description of a realist. A matter never made clear to me.