le in many of his exploits, whom they have never been
able altogether to love, or entirely to sympathize with, or to view
quite without distrust.

There are several ways of accounting for this fact,--ranging from the
hurtful as well as beneficent aspect of the storm-god, to the natural
inability of a poet to understand a man who succeeds in everything: but
the fact is, after all, of no present importance save that it may well
have prompted Lewistam to scamp his dealings with this always somewhat
ambiguous Manuel, and so to omit the hereinafter included legends, as
unsuited to the clearer and sunnier atmosphere of the _Popular Tales_.

For my part, I am quite content, in this Comedy of Appearances, to
follow the old romancers' lead. "Such and such things were said and done
by our great Manuel," they say to us, in effect: "such and such were the
appearances, and do you make what you can of them."

I say that, too, with the addition that in real life, also, such is the
fashion in which we are compelled to deal with all happenings and with
all our fellows, whether they wear or lack the gaudy name of heroism.

Dumbarton Grange

October, 1920

[Illustration]

PART ONE

THE BOOK OF CREDIT

TO

WILSON FOLLETT

Then _answered the Magician dredefully: Manuel, Manuel, now I shall
shewe unto thee many bokes of_ Nygromancy, _and howe thou shalt cum by
it lyghtly and knowe the practyse therein. And, moreouer, I shall shewe
and informe you so that thou shall have thy Desyre, whereby my thynke it
is a great Gyfte for so lytyll a doynge_.

I

How Manuel Left the Mire

They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days when miracles were as
common as fruit pies, young Manuel was a swineherd, living modestly in
attendance upon the miller's pigs. They tell also that Manuel was
content enough: he knew not of the fate which was reserved for him.

Meanwhile in all the environs of Rathgor, and in the thatched villages
of Lower Targamon, he was well liked: and when the young people gathered
in the evening to drink brandy and eat nuts and gingerbread, nobody
danced more merrily than Squinting Manuel. He had a quiet way with the
girls, and with the men a way of solemn, blinking simplicity which
caused the more hasty in judgment to consider him a fool. Then, too,
young Manuel was very often detected smiling sleepily over nothing, and
his gravest care in life appeared to be that figure which Manuel had
made