t in alcohol for ten minutes,
you will be able to read it, and, no doubt, if you copy it off, sell it
for a goodly sum. It is guaranteed absolutely genuine."

"Very well," said I, rising, "I'll go; but I should think you would put
in most of your time whacking at the government editorially, instead of
going in for minutes and abstract stories of adventure."

"You do, eh?" said Boswell. "Well, if you were in my place you'd change
your mind. After my unexpected endorsement by the Emperor and his
cabinet, I've decided to keep out of politics for a little while. I
can stand having a poem tattooed on my back, but if it came to having
a three-column editorial expressing my emotions etched alongside of my
spine, I'm afraid I'd disappear into thin air."

So I left him at work and retired. The next morning I found the promised
bundle of manuscripts, and, after boiling the pages as instructed,
discovered the following tale.

III. FROM ADVANCE SHEETS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN'S FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS

It is with some very considerable hesitation that I come to this
portion of my personal recollections, and yet I feel that I owe it to
my fellow-citizens in this delightful Stygian country, where we are
all enjoying our well-earned rest, to lay before them the exact truth
concerning certain incidents which have now passed into history, and
for participation in which a number of familiar figures are improperly
gaining all the credit, or discredit, as the case may be. It is not a
pleasant task to expose an impostor; much less is it agreeable to expose
four impostors; but to one who from the earliest times--and when I say
earliest times I speak advisedly, as you will see as you read on--to
one, I say, who from the earliest times has been actuated by no other
motive than the promulgation of truth, the task of exposing fraud
becomes a duty which cannot be ignored. Therefore, with regret I set
down this chapter of my memoirs, regardless of its consequences to
certain figures which have been of no inconsiderable importance in our
community for many years--figures which in my own favorite club, the
Associated Shades, have been most welcome, but which, as I and they
alone know, have been nothing more than impostures.

In previous volumes I have confined my attention to my memoirs as Baron
Munchausen--but, dear reader, there are others. I WAS NOT ALWAYS BARON
MUNCHAUSEN; I HAVE BEEN OTHERS! I am not aware that it has fallen to the
lot o