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Portrait of the Author—Frontispiece
NOTICE
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative
will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a
moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to
find a plot in it will be shot.
By Order of the Author,
Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance.
EXPLANATORY
In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without
it many readers would suppose that all these characters
were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
The Author.