resources a locality and a set of outward conditions to environ these
imagined personalities. These are all to be brushed away, and the actual
surroundings of the subject of the narrative represented as they were, at
the risk of detaining the reader a little while from the events most
likely to interest him. The choicest egg that ever was laid was not so
big as the nest that held it. If a story were so interesting that a
maiden would rather hear it than listen to the praise of her own beauty,
or a poet would rather read it than recite his own verses, still it would
have to be wrapped in some tissue of circumstance, or it would lose half
its effectiveness.

It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in this
narrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. Recent
experiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in designating
places and the people who live in them. There are, it may be added, so
many advertisements disguised under the form of stories and other
literary productions that one naturally desires to avoid the suspicion of
being employed by the enterprising proprietors of this or that celebrated
resort to use his gifts for their especial benefit. There are no doubt
many persons who remember the old sign and the old tavern and its four
chief personages presently to be mentioned. It is to be hoped that they
will not furnish the public with a key to this narrative, and perhaps
bring trouble to the writer of it, as has happened to other authors. If
the real names are a little altered, it need not interfere with the
important facts relating to those who bear them. It might not be safe to
tell a damaging story about John or James Smythe; but if the slight
change is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would never think
of bringing an action, as if the allusion related to any of them. The
same gulf of family distinction separates the Thompsons with a p from the
Thomsons without that letter.