The Attorney's Conscience by R. Austin Freeman

I SUPPOSE if I were a sensitive man I should not be writing this history; or, at any rate, should not contemplate its perusal by strangers. For no man cares to be written down a liar; and many will conceal an incredible truth rather than run the risk. However, of these hyper-sensitive folk I am not one. For a good many years now I have practised at the bar; and, if that fact offers no guarantee of unimpeachable veracity it at least furnishes presumptive evidence of a fairly robust moral epidermis. I may not be believed; but the frankest scepticism will leave me undisturbed and unabashed.

My connection with the surprising events that I am about to record, began at the moment of my entering the shop of Mr. Reuben Solomon in Booksellers' Row. The "Row" has been swept away some years by a progressive County Council, and sorrowful ratepayers may look in through the palings and see very expensive wild flowers blooming -- but not paying rates -- upon its site. But in those days it was still standing, a happy hunting-ground for the bibliophile and a perennial joy to the urban artist; and Mr. Solomon's shop still gladdened the bookish eye with colossal black-letter folios, antique volumes in rusty calf and dainty, vellum-bound Elzevirs.