·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·
From The King of the Mountains, by Edmond About, Translated from the French; with a Critical Introduction by Andrew Lang; a Frontispiece and Numerous Other Portraits with Descriptive Notes by Octave Uzanne; The French Classical Romances Complete in Twenty Crown Octavo Volumes, Editor-in-Chief Edmond Gosse, LL.D; New York: P. F. Collier & Son; 1902; pp. 302-304.
CHAPTER IX
A LETTER FROM ATHENS
ON the very day that I was going to send Mr. Hermann Schultz’s story to the publisher’s, my honoured correspondent in Athens returned me the manuscript with the following letter :
“SIR :
“The history of the King of the Mountains is an invention of some enemy of truth and of — the police. None of the persons named in it have appeared in Greece. No passport, bearing the name of Mrs. Simons, ever has been viséd. The Commander of the Piræus never has heard of the Fancy, nor of Mr. John Harris. Messrs. Philip & Co. do not remember having employed Mr. William Lobster. No diplomatic agent has in his office a Maltese called Giacomo Fondi. The National Bank of Greece is not without reproach, but never has had in its hands funds whose origin could be traced to brigandage. If that had been the case, the bank would certainly have confiscated the money. I hold at your disposal a list of 303 our carabineer officers. No one of the name of Pericles is to be found in it. I only know two men so called. One is an innkeeper in Athens, the other a grocer at Tripolitza.
“As for the famous Hadji Stavros — whose name I have heard to-day for the first time — he belongs entirely to mythology. I confess that, formerly, there were brigands in Greece. The most important of them were destroyed by Hercules and Theseus, whom we may perhaps look upon as the original founders of our Grecian police. Those who escaped them have fallen under the blows of our invincible army.
“The author of the romance you sent me has shown as much ignorance as bad faith, in affecting to believe in the actual existence of brigandage. I would give much to have his portrait published either in France or England, together with his absurd story. The world would then learn by what clumsy artifices certain persons endeavour to compromise us in the eyes of civilized nations.
“As for you, sir, who have always rendered us justice, I beg you to believe in the assurance of my most distinguished sentiments.
“Yours gratefully and obediently,
“PATRIOTIS PSEPTIS.”
(Author of a volume of dithyrambi on the Regeneration of Greece, editor of Hope, member of the Archæological Society of Athens, correspondent of the Academy of the Ionian Islands, shareholder in the National Company of the Spartan Pavlos).
304THE AUTHOR AGAIN SPEAKS :
“My good Athenian friend, the truest histories are not always those that have really come to pass.”
·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·)(·