But the turns of my Dedication to the Bhow Begum shall not be trusted to the letter founders, a set of men remarkable for involving their craft in such mystery that no one ever taught it to another, every one who has practised it having been obliged either surreptitiously to obtain the secret, or to invent a method for himself. It shall be in the old English letter, not only because that alphabet hath in its curves and angles, its frettings and redundant lines, a sort of picturesque similitude with Gothic architecture, but also because in its breadth and beauty it will display the colour of the ink to most advantage. For the Dedication shall not be printed in black after the ordinary fashion, nor in white like the Sermon upon the Excise Laws, nor in red after the mode of Mr. Dibdin's half titles, but in the colour of that imperial encaustic ink, which by the laws of the Roman Empire it was death for any but the Roman Emperor himself to use. We Britons live in a free country, wherein every man may use what coloured ink seemeth good to him, and put as much gall in it as he pleases, or any other ingredient whatsoever. Moreover this is an imperial age, in which to say nothing of M. Ingelby the Emperor of the Conjurors, we have seen no fewer than four new Emperors. He of Russia who did not think the old title of Peter the Great good enough for him: he of France, for whom any name but that of Tyrant or Murderer is too good; he of Austria who took up one imperial appellation to cover over the humiliating manner in which he laid another down; and he of Hayti, who if he be wise will order all public business to be carried on in the talkee-talkee tongue, and make it high treason for any person to speak or write French in his dominions. We also must dub our old Parliament imperial forsooth! that we may not be behindhand with the age. Then we have Imperial Dining Tables! Imperial Oil for nourishing the hair! Imperial Liquid for Boot Tops! Yea, and, by all the Cæsars deified and damnified, Imperial Blacking! For my part I love to go with the stream, so I will have an Imperial Dedication. Behold it Reader. Therein is mystery. [Illustration: To The Bhow Begum KEDORA NIABARMA] CHAPTER I. A. I. NO BOOK CAN BE COMPLETE WITHOUT A PREFACE. I see no cause but men may pick their teeth, Though Brutus with a sword did kill himself. TAYLOR, THE WATER POET.