The Wise and Foolish Virgins among them carried ten lamps; and
strangely enough, that number coincides with the number of stories in
this volume. In five lamps no oil was poured, so that the lamps gave
forth no light, but the remaining lamps were well filled and shed forth
light on all around. Such may, I trust, be the case with my stories;
some of them may to my readers appear dull and uninteresting, but in
the remaining moiety I trust some gleams of pleasure may be found,
which, if not shedding forth the electric rays of a Poe, may yet give
forth enough intellectual light to cause the writer to be seen and
appreciated by the public as one who has not wholly failed to use his
pen to the pleasure of his indulgent readers.
Probably my penchant for listening to stories wrung from unwilling
guests is highly reprehensible; but I am sorry to say that my hobby has
quite taken the bit between its teeth, and, instead of my riding and
controlling, it has mastered me.
Some of my friends, probably my truest friends, prophesy, and I must
say with some grounds for their forecasts, that I stand a good chance
of seeing the interior of a gaol--my crime that of divulging the
secrets of persons whose brains I have used as a kind of mental sponge.
These good friends regard me as an ogre, prowling over the country on
wheels, and robbing those to whom I have given sanctuary and shown
hospitality in my humble caravan home.
Probably they are right; but why in these days of dearth of original
and uncommon stories, should persons be allowed to carry such
interesting narratives about with them in a dog-in-the-manger style,
when by the exercise of a little ingenuity I am able to obtain their
hoarded narratives, and use them for the public good? Surely the end
justifies the means, from a literary point of view.
The hypnotic seizure of tales untold is a simple art, and if any of
my readers (those having secret family skeletons preferred) will call
upon me, I will with pleasure show them how to hunt for a story. The
hunter and the quarry only are needed; noisy hounds to worry the poor
quarry are not required, the hunter does it all quietly and effectively
by himself, just as that watchful assassin, the spider, interviews the
interesting and toothsome fly.