My dear Archie,

Do you remember that bright summer morning last year when we lay out on the lawn and read together the "Labours of Heracles," and how you once interrupted to ask "if the tales were true?"

The tales in this little book are true, and beside the winter fire I wrote them, fancying that I still had your eager face beside me, heard still your eager demand for "another story." Will you like these as well, I wonder?