when it is beginning to go bad), I decided to take as my theme the adventures of a typically splendid representative of Young India on British soil, and I am in earnest hopes to avoid the shocking solecisms and exaggerations indulged in by ordinary English novelists.

I have been compelled to take to penmanship of this sort owing to pressure of res angusta[xi] domi, the immoderate increase of hostages to fortune, and proportionate falling off of emoluments from my profession as Barrister-at-Law.

[xi]

Therefore, I hope that all concerned will smile favourably upon my new departure, and will please kindly understand that, if my English literary style has suffered any deterioration, it is solely due to my being out of practice, and such spots on the sun must be excused as mere flies in ointment.

After forming my resolution of writing a large novel, I confided it to my crony, Mr Ram Ashootosh Lall, who warmly recommended me to persevere in such a magnum opus. So I became divinely inflated periodically every evening from 8 to 12 P.M., disregarding all entreaties from feminine relatives to stop and indulge in a blow-out on ordinary eatables, like Archimedes when Troy was captured, who was so engrossed in writing prepositions on the sand that he was totally unaware that he was being barbarously slaughtered.[xii]

P.M.

[xii]

And at length my colossal effusion was completed, and I had written myself out; after which I had the indescribable joy and felicity to read my composition to my mothers-in-law and wives and their respective progenies and offspring, whereupon, although they were not acquainted with a word of English, they were overcome by such severe admiration for my fecundity and native eloquence that they swooned with rapture.

I am not a superstitious, but I took the trouble to consult a soothsayer, as to the probable fortunes of my undertaking, and he at once confidently predicted that my novel was to render all readers dumb as fishes with sheer amazement and prove a very fine feather in my cap.

For all the above reasons, I am modestly confident that it will be generally recognised as a masterpiece, especially when it is remembered that it is the work of a native Indian, whose 'prentice hand is still a novice in wielding the currente calamo of fiction.[xiii]

[xiii]

I 

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