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                            A CHOSEN FEW

                           SHORT STORIES

                                 BY

                         FRANK R. STOCKTON

            WITH AN ETCHED PORTRAIT BY W. H. W. BICKNELL

                              NEW YORK
                      CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
                                1895




                        Copyright, 1895, by
                      CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

                        THE DE VINNE PRESS.




PREFACE


The stories contained in this little volume were chosen, by virtue
of a sort of literary civil-service examination, in order that they
might be grouped together as a representative class of the author's
best-known work in this line.

Several of these sto