A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 195: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

192 A QUEER RACE. attic, a ticking watch in the basement. In the hotels at which we stayed I had to engage the rooms both above and below ours, and on either side of them, in order that they might be unoccupied. Before leaving London I sold some fifty thousand pounds’ worth of pearls, and purchased such things as Mab thought her people most required. To the managing owners of the Diana, I remitted a bank draft for the declared value of her cargo, with no other explanation than that, although the ship herself had become a total wreck, I had been so fortunate as to dispose of the cargo for an amount that, | was glad te think, would recoup the underwriters the greater part of the claims for which they were liable. To one friend only——an old school-fellow whom. [ acei- dentally met in London—did I introduce my wife and tell — my story. To this gentleman, moreover, my book, if | may call it mine, will owe its existence. Himself a press- man and a writer of stories, he was good enough to say that my personal narrative, “‘put into proper shape,” might make a readable book; and he offered, if I would give him the necessary particulars, to act as its literary sponsor, and see the work through the press. Mab and I, after some hesitation, agreed to this proposal, making it, however, an imperative condition that the precise whereabouts of the island should on no account be dis- closed—for the present. ) The first and greater part of my narrative was then taken down in short-hand; the remainder I have written on the vovage out; and as I add these lines, Bolsover is waiting with the Sunflower to convey us and a second consignment of horses to Fair Island. In the not distant future I hope that Mab and I may have so far overcome her people’s prejudice against strangers, and their love of isolation, that we shall be permitted to say where we are, and in some future edition of a ‘‘ Queer Race” invite those of my readers who may feel so disposed to pay us a visit in our island home. [THE END. | — LIBRARY OF CONGRESS i OG 1G) ISS I»