The Fatal Boots

"Some poet has observed, that if any man would write down what has really
happened to him in this mortal life, he would be sure to make a good book,
though he never had met with a single adventure from his birth to his burial.
How much more, then, must I, who HAVE had adventures, most singular, pathetic,
and unparalleled, be able to compile an instructive and entertaining volume for
the use of the public.

I don't mean to say that I have killed lions, or seen the wonders of
travel in the deserts of Arabia or Prussia; or that I have been a very
fashionable character, living with dukes and peeresses, and writing my
recollections of them, as the way now is. I never left this my native isle, nor
spoke to a lord (except an Irish one, who had rooms in our house, and forgot to
pay three weeks' lodging and extras); but, as our immortal bard observes, I have
in the course of my existence been so eaten up by the slugs and harrows of
outrageous fortune, and have been the object of such continual and extraordinary
ill-luck, that I believe it would melt the heart of a milestone to read of
it--that is, if a milestone had a heart of anything but stone."

- Excerpted from "The Fatal Boots"