hing is as it should
be;" for I warn all beforehand that I tell but of things that I have
seen. My villains, I fear, are but poor sinners, not altogether bad;
and my good men but sorry saints. My princes do not always slay their
dragons; alas, sometimes, the dragon eats the prince. The wicked
fairies often prove more powerful than the good. The magic thread leads
sometimes wrong, and even the hero is not always brave and true.

So let those come round me only who will be content to hear but their
own story, told by another, saying as they listen, "So dreamt I. Ah,
yes, that is true, I remember."

CHAPTER I

PAUL, ARRIVED IN A STRANGE LAND, LEARNS MANY THINGS, AND GOES TO MEET
THE MAN IN GREY.

Fate intended me for a singularly fortunate man. Properly, I ought to
have been born in June, which being, as is well known, the luckiest
month in all the year for such events, should, by thoughtful parents, be
more generally selected. How it was I came to be born in May, which is,
on the other hand, of all the twelve the most unlucky, as I have proved,
I leave to those more conversant with the subject to explain. An early
nurse, the first human being of whom I have any distinct recollection,
unhesitatingly attributed the unfortunate fact to my natural impatience;
which quality she at the same time predicted would lead me into even
greater trouble, a prophecy impressed by future events with the stamp of
prescience. It was from this same bony lady that I likewise learned the
manner of my coming. It seems that I arrived, quite unexpectedly, two
hours after news had reached the house of the ruin of my father's mines
through inundation; misfortunes, as it was expounded to me, never coming
singly in this world to any one. That all things might be of a piece,
my poor mother, attempting to reach the bell, fell against and broke the
cheval-glass, thus further saddening herself with the conviction--for
no amount of reasoning ever succeeded in purging her Welsh blood of
its natural superstition--that whatever might be the result of future
battles with my evil star, the first seven years of tiny existence had
been, by her act, doomed to disaster.

"And I must confess," added the knobbly Mrs. Fursey, with a sigh, "it
does look as though there must be some truth in the saying, after all."

"Then ain't I a lucky little boy?" I asked. For hitherto it had been
Mrs. Fursey's method to impress upon me my exceptional good fortune.
That I