



Produced by David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online
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                         IN BRIEF AUTHORITY

                            BY F. ANSTEY

AUTHOR OF "VICE VERSA," "A FALLEN IDOL," "THE PARIAH," "THE GIANT'S
ROBE," "LYRE AND LANCET," "THE BRASS BOTTLE," "THE TALKING HORSE AND
OTHER TALES," "SALTED ALMONDS," ETC.


LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1915

[All rights reserved]

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh




To
Peggy




AUTHOR'S NOTE


It may be as well to mention here that the whole of this book was
planned, and at least three-fourths of it actually written, in those
happy days, which now seem so pathetically distant, when we were still
at peace--days when, to all but a very few, so hideous a calamity as a
World-War seemed a danger that had passed for the present, and might
never recur; when even those few could hardly have foreseen that England
would be so soon compelled to fight for her very existence against the
most efficient and deadly foe it has ever been her lot to encounter.

But, as the central idea of this story happens to be inseparably
connected with certain characters and incidents of German origin, I have
left them unaltered--partly because it would have been difficult, if not
impossible, to substitute any others