Produced by David Clarke, Jen Haines and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) Transcriber's Note: Parochial, older style and alternative spelling has been left as it appears in the original. THE GIANT'S ROBE BY F. ANSTEY AUTHOR OF 'VICE-VERSA' 'Now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe Upon a dwarfish thief'--_Macbeth_ _THIRD EDITION_ LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1884 [_All rights reserved_] PREFACE. It has been my intention from the first to take this opportunity of stating that, if I am indebted to any previous work for the central idea of a stolen manuscript, such obligation should be ascribed to a short tale, published some time ago in one of the Christmas numbers--the only story upon the subject which I have read at present. It was the story of a German student who, having found in the library of his university an old scientific manuscript, by a writer long since dead and forgotten, produced it as his own; and it is so probable that the recollection of this incident became quite unconsciously the germ of the present book that, although the matter is not of general importance, I feel it only fair to mention it here. I trust, nevertheless, that it is not necessary to insist upon any claim to the average degree of originality; for if the book does not bear the traces of honest and independent work, that is a defect which is scarcely likely to be removed by the most eloquent and argumentative of prefaces. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE