I hereby tender an apology to the reader for being compelled, in these
curious chronicles of an adventurous motorist and his actions towards
certain of his female acquaintances, to omit real names, and to
substitute assumed ones. With the law of libel looming darkly, the
reason is obvious.
Since the days when, as lads, we played cricket together at Cheltenham
"the Prince," always a sportsman and always generous to the poor, has
ever been my friend. In the course of my own wandering life of the past
dozen years or so, I have come across him in all sorts of unexpected
places up and down Europe, and more especially in those countries beyond
the Danube which we term the Balkans.
For certain of his actions, and for the ingenuity of his somewhat
questionable friends, I make no apology. While the game of
"mug-hunting" remains so easy and so profitable, there will be always
both hunters and hunted. As my friend's escapades were related to me,
so have I set them down in the following pages, in the belief that my
readers may perhaps care to make more intimate acquaintance with the
clever, fearless, and altogether remarkable man whose exploits have
already, from time to time, been referred to in guarded and mysterious
terms by the daily press.
William Le Queux.