Project Gutenberg's Elbow-Room, by Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

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Title: Elbow-Room
A Novel Without a Plot

Author: Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

Release Date: June 11, 2004 [EBook #12581]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ELBOW-ROOM

_A NOVEL WITHOUT A PLOT_

BY

MAX ADELER

1870

AUTHOR OF "OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY," ETC., ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR B. FROST

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

PREFACE

If every book that contains nothing but nonsense confessed that fact
in its preface, the world would have been saved a vast amount of
dreary reading. Most of such volumes, however, are believed by their
authors to be full of wisdom of the solidest kind; and confession,
therefore, being impossible, the reader may learn the truth only
through much tribulation. The writer of this book freely admits, at
the outset, that it contains only the lightest humor, and that its
single purpose is to afford amusement. At the same time, he claims for
it that it is wiser and far more useful than many more solemn books
that have been published, with the intent to regenerate mankind, by
authors who would regard such a volume as this with feelings of scorn.

This is simply an effort to tell stories of a humorous character; and
although the attempt may not be so successful as it has been in the
hands of others, from Boccaccio downward, it has at least one quality
that some greater achievements do not possess: it is absolutely pure
in thought, word and suggestion. If it is filled with nonsense, that
nonsense at any rate is innocent. It is modest, cleanly and without
malice or irreverence. A worthier and nobler work might have been
written; a purer work could not have been.

What its other merits are he who reads it will discern. To apologize
for it in any manner would be to admit that it has grave deficiencies,
and such an admission the author would not make even if his conscience
impelled him to do so. The book is offered to the reader with the
conviction that if th