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AUTHOR'S
PREFACE

If I have dared to veil under a thin disguise some of the men whose talk and adventures fill these pages it is because of my profound belief that truth is infinitely more strange and infinitely more interesting than fiction. The characters around the table are all my personal friends; the incidents, each and every one, absolutely true, and the setting of the Marmouset, as well as the Inn itself, has been known to many hundreds of my readers, who have enjoyed for

years the rare hospitality of its quaint and accomplished landlord.

F. H. S.

November, 1911