PREFACE.
My Dear Frank:—
You, who know me best, accept this little book. I dedicate it to you. Shakespeare calls me an "abstract and brief chronicle of the time." Marie Corelli says I am only a "Monkey." Dead or alive, "Some one has blundered" in Stratford.
Many estimable persons in the calling I use to get my living, and a few profound critics of matters relative to that calling, declare their admiration of me for "My kindness to my relations," but deplore my inability to sustain my title to any professional aptitude whatever, whilst other equally estimable persons and critics in and out of my calling, declare I am "Great."
So I am in a quandary how to nominate myself. Accept me then as my Mother brought me into the World—and as the World knows me—plain Kyrle Bellew—and your Friend.
I have been many things, amongst others, a Sailor, an Australian Station-hand, a Gold miner, a Cattle drover, a Grave digger, an Explorer, a Book-keeper, a Journalist, a Dramatic Critic (God forgive me) an Author of many fugitive contributions to various and varied periodicals; have perpetrated a few successful plays, and a few others. Have wandered the World over; done all the unwise things men do; repented of many of them; shall live I hope to repent of many more. Have not any claim to the veracity of George Washington or the equally unconventional attributes of St. Anthony. Good, bad, and indifferent labels have been ticketed throughout the world upon the back of my character and I stand as a kind of Sign-
