Produced by Al Haines

THE TALE OF LAL

A FANTASY

BY

RAYMOND PATON
AUTHOR OF "THE DRUMMER OF THE DAWN"

BRENTANO'S CHAPMAN & HALL LTD.
NEW YORK LONDON

1914

AN EXPLANATION AND AN APOLOGY

Upon behalf of Ridgwell and Christine the author has been urged to explain that three things—facts, common-sense, and probability—have of necessity been throughout entirely omitted in relating this story. The children, however, have comforted the author by declaring that these particular things are not required at all in any book of the present day, but are merely an old-fashioned survival of the past, which is gradually dying out.