Excerpt from Steyneville, Or Fated Fortunes, Vol. 1 of 3: Being the Memoirs of an Unextraordinary Man

Once there lived a man who, after many endeavours, built a cockleshell of a boat - a boat so puny and weak, that he feared to venture it on the waves lest it would sink.

"Why, didn't you build something more substantial?" inquired a friend.

"Because I hadn't sufficient material, " responded the craftsman, despondingly. "Would you advise me to launch the frail thing?"

"Now she's built she may as well tempt fate. Believe me, she stands more than a fair chance to go under."

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