The Fatal Boots

Some poet has observed, that if any man would write down what has reallyhappened 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 hisburial. How much more, then, must I, who HAVE had adventures, mostsingular, pathetic, and unparalleled, be able to compile an instructiveand entertaining volume for the use of the public.

I don't mean to say that I have killed lions, or seen the wonders oftravel in the deserts of Arabia or Prussia; or that I have been a veryfashionable character, living with dukes and peeresses, and writing myrecollections of them, as the way now is. I never left this my nativeisle, nor spoke to a lord (except an Irish one, who had rooms in ourhouse, and forgot to pay three weeks' lodging and extras); but, as ourimmortal bard observes, I have in the course of my existence been so eatenup by the slugs and harrows of outrageous fortune, and have been theobject of such continual and extraordinary ill-luck, that I believe itwould melt the heart of a milestone to read of it — that is, if amilestone had a heart of anything but stone.

Twelve of my adventures, suitable for meditation and perusal during thetwelve months of the year, have been arranged by me for this work. Theycontain a part of the history of a great, and, confidently I may say, aGOOD man. I was not a spendthrift like other men. I never wronged any manof a shilling, though I am as sharp a fellow at a bargain as any inEurope. I never injured a fellow-creature; on the contrary, on severaloccasions, when injured myself, have shown the most wonderful forbearance.I come of a tolerably good family; and yet, born to wealth — of aninoffensive disposition, careful of the money that I had, and eager to getmore, — I have been going down hill ever since my journey of lifebegan, and have been pursued by a complication of misfortunes such assurely never happened to any man but the unhappy Bob Stubbs.

Bob Stubbs is my name; and I haven't got a shilling: I have borne thecommission of lieutenant in the service of King George, and am NOW — butnever mind what I am now, for the public will know in a few pages more. Myfather was of the Suffolk Stubbses — a well-to-do gentleman of Bungay.My grandfather had been a respected attorney in that town, and left mypapa a pretty little fortune. I was thus the inheritor of competence, andought to be at this moment a gentleman.