The Wrecker

R >> Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne >> The Wrecker


I see you staring. Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity of
theory to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not a shadow
of an answer to your question.

Well, some of us like theory. After so long a piece of practice, these
may be indulged for a few pages. And the answer is at hand. It was
plainly desirable, from every point of view of convenience and contrast,
that our hero and narrator should partly stand aside from those with
whom he mingles, and be but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt. Thus it
was that Loudon Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our
globe-trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon. And
thus it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of this
epilogue.

For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between the lines,
it must be you--and one other, our friend. All the dominos will be
transparent to your better knowledge; the statuary contract will be to
you a piece of ancient history; and you will not have now heard for the
first time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from the Bas Breau,
echoes from Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let
these be your bookmarkers as you read. And if you care for naught else
in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more for a moment the
airs of our youth.

The End.