Preface
_ A weaver goes to the mart with a divided tapestry, and with half in either hand he walks about telling that whoever possesses one must, perforce, possess the other for the sake of the story. But allegories are out of place in popular editions； they require linen paper, large margins, uncut edges； even these would be insufficient； only illuminated vellum can justify that which is never read. So perhaps it will be better if I abandon the allegory and tell what happened: how one day after writing the history of "Evelyn Innes" for two years I found myself short of paper, and sought vainly for a sheet in every drawer of the writing-table； every one had been turned into manuscript, and "Evelyn Innes" stood nearly two feet high.
"Five hundred pages at least," I said, "and only half of my story finished.... This is a matter, on which I need the publisher‘s opinion."
Ten minutes after I was rolling away in a hansom towards Paternoster Square, very anxious to persuade him th

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