



Produced by Polly Stratton








THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE


by William J. Locke







PART I





CHAPTER I


For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in Verona, to
write the history of my extravagant adventure. I shall formulate and
expand the rough notes in my diary which lies open before me, and I
shall begin with a happy afternoon in May, six months ago.


May 20th.

_London_:--To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from
captivity. I will note it every year in my diary with a sigh of
unutterable thanksgiving. For seven long blessed years have I been
free from the degrading influences of Jones Minor and the First Book of
Euclid. Some men find the modern English boy stimulating, and the old
Egyptian humorous. Such are the born schoolmasters, and schoolmasters,
like poets, _nascuntur non