CHAPTER XV.
AN EPISODE.
I fear the gentle reader, how much more the savage one, will accuse me of having beguiled him with false pretenses.

Here I have written XIV chapters of this story, which claims to be a mystery, and there stand the letters XV at the head of this chapter and I have not got to the mystery yet, and my friend Miss Cormorant, who devours her dozen novels a week for steady diet, and perhaps makes it a baker's dozen at this season of the year, and who loves nothing so well as to be mystified by labyrinthine plots and counterplots--Miss Cormorant is about to part company with me at this point.

She doesn't like this plain sailing.

Now, I will be honest with you, Miss Cormorant, all the more that I don't care if you do quit.

I will tell you plainly that to my mind the mystery lies yet several chapters in advance, and that I shouldn't be surprised if I have to pass out of my teens and begin to head with double X's before I get to that mystery.