If every book that contains nothing but nonsense confessed that fact in its preface, the world would have been saved a vast amount of dreary reading.

Most of such volumes, however, are believed by their authors to be full of wisdom of the solidest kind; and confession, therefore, being impossible, the reader may learn the truth only through much tribulation.

The writer of this book freely admits, at the outset, that it contains only the lightest humor, and that its single purpose is to afford amusement.

At the same time, he claims for it that it is wiser and far more useful than many more solemn books that have been published, with the intent to regenerate mankind, by authors who would regard such a volume as this with feelings of scorn.
This is simply an effort to tell stories of a humorous character; and although the attempt may not be so successful as it has been in the hands of others, from Boccaccio downward, it has at least one quality that some greater achievements do not possess: it is absolutely pure in thought, word and suggestion.

If it is filled with nonsense, that nonsense at any rate is innocent.