



Produced by Charles Aldarondo






THE FIEND'S DELIGHT

By Dod Grile


"Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views from thy hand no
worthy action done."

New York:

1873.



TO THE IMMUTABLE AND INFALLIBLE GODDESS, GOOD TASTE, IN GRATITUDE
FOR HER CONDEMNATION OF ALL SUPERIOR AUTHORS, AND IN THE HOPE OF
PROPITIATING HER CREATORS AND EXPOUNDERS, This Volume is reverentially
Dedicated BY HER DEVOUT WORSHIPPER,

THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


The atrocities constituting this "cold collation" of diabolisms are
taken mainly from various Californian journals. They are cast in the
American language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibility. If
they shall prove incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, the
reader can pass to the other side at a moderately extortionate charge.
In the pursuit of my design I think I have killed a good many people
in one way and another; but the reader will please to observe that they
were not people worth the trouble of leaving alive. Besides, I had the
interests of my collaborator to consult. In writing, as in compiling,
I have been ably assisted by my scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to this
worthy gentleman must be attributed most of the views herein set forth.
While the plan of the work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his;
and this illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely
imitative mind. Palmam qui meruit ferat--I shall be content with the
profit.

DOD GRILE.




SOME FICTION.


"One More Unfortunate."


It was midnight--a black, wet, midnight--in a great city by the sea. The
church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the
marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female