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My task is ended. Allow me, dear reader, to disclose to you an apprehension, which has haunted me throughout this work. This apprehension you will more easily understand if I preface it, by way of illustration, with the following apologue.
You have, doubtless, witnessed the singular spectacle of two men fighting in the public highway, and, suddenly reconciled, turning their united strength against the officious persons who separate them.
In a similar manner, does not the author of these pages run the same risk?
May it not happen, that the losers and the winners, the dupes as well as the rogues, may regard him as their common enemy?
The infatuated gamblers will reproach him for making them afraid of being robbed, and thereby preventing them from playing.
The Greeks will be sure to hate him, for having unmasked their knaveries.
These considerations, you see, have not prevented me from following out the task I had imposed upon myself, and, whatever happens, I trust the public will give me credit for a wish to enlighten them, and for having had their interest more at heart even than my own.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.