The Fortunate Island, and Other Stories

By MAX ADELER
AUTHOR OF “OUT OF THE HURLY BURLY” “ELBOW ROOM” “RANDOM SHOTS” ETC.
BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 1882
Copyright, 1881, By Chas. Heber Clark.
All Rights Reserved.
The custom which has ordained that a book shall have a preface is useful enough to writers who have to say to their readers something which could not properly be said in the body of the text; but it imposes a burden upon those who have no such communication to make. The author of the present volume considers that he may fairly perform the task by remarking that if the tales herein contained are not so amusing as others he has written, they will perhaps be found to be quite as entertaining, and possibly, in some particulars, more instructive. If they shall be received by the public with the favor that was found by the preceding volumes, the author will have reason to congratulate himself that they have achieved success of a somewhat remarkable character.
Max Adeler.
When the good ship “Morning Star,” bound to Liverpool from New York, foundered at sea, the officers, the crew, and all of the passengers but two, escaped in the boats. Professor E. L. Baffin and his daughter, Matilda Baffin, preferred to intrust themselves to a patent india-rubber life-raft, which the Professor was carrying with him to Europe, with the hope that he should sell certain patent rights in the contrivance.
There was time enough, before the ship sank, to inflate the raft and to place upon it all of the trunks and bundles belonging to the Professor and Matilda. These were lashed firmly to the rubber cylinders, and thus Professor Baffin was encouraged to believe that he might save from destruction all of the scientific implements and apparatus which he had brought with him from the Wingohocking University to illustrate the course of lectures which he had engaged to give in England and Scotland.
Having made the luggage fast, the Professor handed Matilda down from the ship’s side, and when he had tied her to one of the trunks and secured himself to another, he cut the raft adrift, and, with the occupants of the boats, sorrowfully watched the brave old “Morning Star” settle down deeper and deeper into the water; until at last, with a final plunge, she dipped beneath the surface and disappeared.