CRUSOE IN NEW YORK,

AND OTHER TALES.

EDWARD E. HALE,

PREFACE.

So far as these little stories have met the public eye, they have called forth criticism from two points of view. It is said, on the one hand, that the moral protrudes too obviously; that if a preacher wants to preach, he had better preach and be done with it; that, in the nineteenth century, which is given to realism, nobody wants "invented example," or stories written to enforce certain theories of right. It is said, on the other hand, that the stories have no right to be, because they have no purpose; that nobody can tell what the author is driving at,—perhaps he cannot tell himself; and that, in the nineteenth century, nobody has any right to thrust upon an exhausted world stories which are not true unless they teach a lesson.

It was early settled for me by the critics, in my little experience as a story-writer, that it is wrong for an author to make his stories probable,—that he who does this is "a forger and a counterfeiter." There is, however, high authority for teaching by parable—and that parable which has a very great air of probability.

My limited experience as an editor has taught me, that, whatever else people will read or will not read, they do read short stories, on the whole, more than they read anything else,—nineteenth century to the contrary notwithstanding.

Whether these little tales have any right to be or not, they exist. To those who think they should have been cast in the shape of sermons, I have only to say that there also exist already, in that form of instructions, one thousand and ninety-six short essays by the same author, to which number every week of his strength and health makes an addition. These are open to the perusal or the hearing of any person who is not "partial to stories," to use an expressive national dialect. Some few even are for sale in print by the publishers of these tales.

The little book is dedicated, with the author's thanks, to those kind readers who have followed his earlier stories, and have been so tolerant that they were willing to ask for more.

MATUNUCK ON THE HILL, RHODE ISLAND,
        July 15, 1880.

CONTENTS.

CRUSOE IN NEW YORK

ALIF-LAILA

A CIVIL SERVANT

NICOLETTE AND AUCASSIN

THE LOST PALACE

THE WESTERN GINEVRA:
    BOUGHT
    SOLD
    CAUGHT AND TOLD

MAX KEESLER'S HORSE-CAR:
    THE PAINT-SHOP
    THE WOMAN BEGAN IT
    A LODGMENT MADE
    AN EXPERIMENT
    REGULAR WORK
    YOUR UNCLE
    THE END

THE MODERN PSYCHE

CRUSOE IN NEW YORK.

PART I.

I was born in the year 1842, in the city of New York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first in England. He got a good estate by merchandise, and afterward lived at New York. But first he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson—a very good family in her country—and from them I was named.

My father died before I can remember—at least, I believe so. For, although I sometimes figure to myself a grave, elderly man, thickset and wearing a broad-brimmed hat, holding me between his knees and advising me seriously, I cannot say really whether this were my father or no; or, rather, whether this is really some one I remember or no. For my mother, with whom I have lived alone much of my life, as the reader will see, has talked to me of my father so much, and has described him to me so faithfully, that I cannot tell but it is her description of him that I recollect so easily. And so, as I say, I cannot tell whether I remember him or no.

He never lost his German notions, and perhaps they gained in England some new force as to the