CRUSOE IN NEW YORK, AND OTHER TALES. BY EDWARD E. HALE, AUTHOR OF "THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY," "IN HIS NAME," "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," "HOW TO DO IT," "HIS LEVEL BEST," ETC. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1880. _Copyright_, 1880, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. PREFACE. So far as these little stories have met the public eye, they have called forth criticism from two points of view. It is said, on the one hand, that the moral protrudes too obviously; that if a preacher wants to preach, he had better preach and be done with it; that, in the nineteenth century, which is given to realism, nobody wants "invented example," or stories written to enforce certain theories of right. It is said, on the other hand, that the stories have no right to be, because they have no purpose; that nobody can tell what the author is driving at,--perhaps he cannot tell himself; and that, in the nineteenth century, nobody has any right to thrust upon an exhausted world stories which are not true unless they teach a lesson. It was early settled for me by the critics, in my little experience as a story-writer, that it is wrong for an author to make his stories probable,--that he who does this is "a forger and a counterfeiter." There is, however, high authority for teaching by parable--and that parable which has a very great air of probability. My limited experience as an editor has taught me, that, whatever else people will read or will not read, they do read short stories, on the whole, more than they read anything else,--nineteenth century to the contrary notwithstanding. Whether these little tales have any right to be or not, they exist. To those who think they should have been cast in the shape of sermons, I have only to say that there also exist already, in that form of instructions, one thousand and ninety-six short essays by the same author, to which number every week of his strength and health makes an addition. These are open to the perusal or the hearing of any person who is not "partial to stories," to use an expressive national dialect. Some few even are for sale in print by the publishers of these tales. The little book is dedicated, with the author's thanks, to those kind readers who have followed his earlier stories, and have been so tolerant that they were willing to ask for more. MATUNUCK ON THE HILL, RHODE ISLAND, July 15, 1880. CONTENTS. CRUSOE IN NEW YORK ALIF-LAILA A CIVIL SERVANT NICOLETTE AND AUCASSIN THE LOST PALACE THE WESTERN GINEVRA: BOUGHT SOLD CAUGHT AND TOLD MAX KEESLER'S HORSE-CAR: THE PAINT-SHOP THE WOMAN BEGAN IT A LODGMENT MADE AN EXPERIMENT REGULAR WORK YOUR UNCLE THE END THE MODERN PSYCHE CRUSOE IN NEW YORK. PART I.