stay than be carried to England to be hanged. So I left it on that
issue. When the captain was gone I sent for the men up to me in my
apartment and let them into the story of my living there; showed them my
fortifications, the way I made my bread, planted my corn; and, in a
word, all that was necessary to make them easy. I told them the story,
also of the Spaniards that were to be expected, and made them promise to
treat them in common with themselves.

I left the next day and went on board the ship with Friday. And thus I
left the island the 19th of December, in the year 1686, after eight and
twenty years, and, after a long voyage, I arrived in England, the 11th
of June, 1687, having been thirty-five years absent.

* * * * *

Captain Singleton

Defoe was fifty-nine when he published this remarkable book,
in 1720. "Robinson Crusoe" had appeared in the previous year,
and "Moll Flanders" came out in 1722. Shrewdness and wit, the
study of character, vividness of imagination, and, beyond
these, the pure literary style, make "Captain Singleton" a
classic in English literature. William the Quaker, the first
Quaker in English fiction, has never been surpassed in any
later novel, and remains an immortal creation. The clear
common sense of this man, the combination of business ability
and a real humaneness, the quiet humour which prevails over
the stupid barbarity of his pirate companions--who but Defoe
could have drawn such a character as the guide, philosopher,
and friend of a crew of pirates? Bob Singleton himself, who
tells the story with a frankness of extraordinary charm,
confessing his willingness for evil courses as readily as his
later repentance, is no less striking a personality. By sheer
imagination the genius of Defoe makes Singleton's adventures,
including the impossible journey across Central Africa, real
and credible. The book is a model of fine narrative.

_I.--Sailing With the Devil_

If I may believe the woman whom I was taught to call mother, I was a
little boy about two years old, very well dressed, and had a nurse-maid
to attend me, who took me out on a fine summer's evening into the fields
towards Islington, to give the child some air; a little girl being with
her, of twelve or fourteen years old, that lived in the neighbourhood.

The maid meets with a fellow, her