, Shem,
Ham and Japhet, consented to put them into permanent literary form. In
view of the facts that at this writing, ink and paper and pens have
not as yet been invented, and that we have no capable stenographers
among our village folk, and that because of my advanced years I should
find great difficulty in producing my manuscript on a type-writing
machine with my gouty fingers--for, of the luscious fluid of the grape
have I been a ready, though never over-abundant, consumer--even if I
were familiar with the keyboard of such an instrument, or, if indeed,
there were any such instrument to facilitate the work--in view of
these facts, I say, I have been compelled to make use of the literary
methods of the Egyptians, and with hammer and chisel, to gouge out my
"Few Remarks" upon such slabs of stone as I can find upon my native
heath.

[Footnote 1: It is quite interesting, in the light of the contentions
of history as to man's earliest realization that the earth is round,
to find Methuselah speaking in this fashion. It would seem from this
that the real facts had dawned upon the Patriarch's mind even at this
early period, and one is therefore disposed to regard as less
apocryphal the anecdote recorded in Volume III, Chapter 38, of "The
Life and Voyages of Noah," wherein Adam, after being ejected from the
Garden of Eden, asked by Cain if he believes the world to be round
like an orange, replies:

"_I used to think so, my son, but under prevailing conditions I am
forced into a more or less definite suspicion that it is elliptical,
like a lemon._"--EDITOR.]

[Illustration: Ye scribe decides not to use Egyptian writing.]

Let us hope that my story will not prove as heavy as my manuscript. It
is hardly necessary for me to assure the indulgent reader that such a
method of composition is not altogether an easy task for a man who is
shortly to celebrate his nine hundred and sixty-fifth birthday, more
especially since at no time in my life have I studied the arts of the
Stone-Cutter, or been a master in the Science of Quarrying. Nor is it
easy at my advanced age, with a back no longer sinewy, and muscles
grown flabby from lack of active exercise, for me to lift a virgin
sheet of stone from the ground to the surface of my writing-desk
without a derrick, but these are, after all, minor difficulties, and I
shall let no such insignificant obstacles stand between me and the
great purpose I have in mind. I shall persist in the face