文档介绍：THE WRONG BOX
THE WRONG BOX
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON & LLOYD
OSBOURNE
1
THE WRONG BOX
PREFACE
'Nothing like a little judicious levity,' says Michael Finsbury in the text:
nor can any better excuse be found for the volume in the reader's hand.
The authors can but add that one of them is old enough to be ashamed of
himself, and the other young enough to learn better.
R. L. S. L. O.
2
THE WRONG BOX
CHAPTER I.
In Which Morris Suspects
How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease,
comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly
skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the
hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian,
correspondence with learned and illegible Germans--in one word, the vast
scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away
an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with a
biography of Tonti--birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited from
his mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc--and plete treatise
on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The material is all beside
me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious. Tonti is dead, and
I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him; and, as for the
tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes of this unvarnished
narrative.
A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) put up a certain
sum of money, which is then funded in a pool under trustees; coming on
for a century later, the proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of
the last survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot even hear of his
ess--and who is certainly dying, so that he might just as well have lost.
The peculiar poetry and even humour of the scheme is now apparent, since
it is one by which nobody concerned can possibly profit; but its fine,
sportsmanlike character endeared it to our grandparents.
When