_So he goes on slap-dashing about, shuttle-cocking back every new delivery, saying "Pish!" over this and "Tush!" about that; writing short comments on margins such as, "Vieux jeu!" or "No Woman would"; only occasionally going carefully through a book to find the chapter that reviewer-fellow said was quite unfit for the girls to read, because one really ought to keep an eye on what comes into the house nowadays. His decisions can, however, scarcely be accepted as unfailing guides to a just discrimination of literary merit, as those who know him are never tired of insisting on his inattentive habits, his paroxysms of electric suddenness in action, and, above all, his insatiable thirst for something new. As for me, I am like Charles Lamb, when he was told there was a gentleman in the room who admired "Paradise Regained." I should like to feel his bumps._ _Nevertheless, he is a personage for whom Authors have a great and natural respect. He is so numerous! And just think what fun it would be if each of him bought a copy of each of one's immortal works! Consequently, I wish to consult his liking, and am prepared--within reason--to defer to his opinion of what length a book ought to be. It is no doubt quite otherwise with those Authors who may be said to belong to the school of Inspirationalism--really one feels quite Modern, writing such a word--who claim for each of their stories the position or character of a sneeze--an automatic action which its victim, perpetrator, executant, interpreter, proprietor, promoter, parent, mover, seconder--or whatever we choose to call him--has absolutely no control over._ _But I am wandering away from the point of this apology, which is really to say "peccavi," and, please, I won't do so any more. So far, that is, as is practicable. If I drop into a prehistoric problem-novel, by way of a change, or have a try at an autobiography of Queen Nilocris--just possibilities at random--I will do what I can to head off readers who want one sort only, and know which it is._ _As for the foregoing story, it is just as Victorian as it is anything else, though not, perhaps, Early enough to give entire satisfaction. One can't expect everything, in this imperfect world. To my thinking the shortness of the story should cover a multitude of sins._ BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS GUILDFORD End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Likely Story, by William De Morgan