To send a book into the world without a preface is like thrusting a bashful man into a room full of company without introducing him; and there could be only one thing worse than that,—to a bashful man,—and that would be to introduce him.
In introducing my book to the reader (how like a book-agent that sounds!) I wish to say that the only bond of union between the various sketches is that they were all done by the same hand—or hands, as they were written on a typewriter.
Whether it would have added to their interest to have placed the same characters in each sketch is not for me to say, but it would have been a great bother to do it, and in getting up a book the thing to avoid is bother. It hasn’t bothered me to write it. I hope it won’t bother you to read it, for I’d hate to have you bothered on my account.
C. B. L.