"I have found out who has created us, and made us as puppets in his hands." "Is it the Almighty ?" he asked.
"No; it is"-- she said, with a burst of real laughter--"it is--The 'All Caine!" "What! our countryman the Manxman?
The only great Novelist?
The beloved of Gladstone ?" he gasped.
"Yes--and he intends to kill YOU--and we're only to be married at your deathbed!" John Gale arose with a look of stern determination.

"I have suffered much and idiotically--but I draw a line at this.

I shall kick!" Golly clapped her hands joyfully.

"We will!" "And we'll chuck him." "We will." They were choking with laughter.
"And go and get married in a natural, simple way like anybody else--and try--to do our duty--to God--to each other--and to our fellow-beings--and quit this--damned--nonsense--and in-fer-nal idiocy forever!" "Amen!" PUBLISHER'S NOTE.--"In that supreme work of my life, 'The Christian,'" said the gifted novelist to a reporter in speaking of his methods, "I had endowed the characters of Golly and John Gale with such superhuman vitality and absolute reality that--as is well known in the experience of great writers--they became thinking beings, and actually criticised my work, and even INTERFERED and REBELLED to the point of altering my climax and the end!" The present edition gives that ending, which of course is the only real one.
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN LONGBOWE, YEOMAN BEING A MODERN-ANTIQUE REALISTIC ROMANCE (COMPILED FROM SEVERAL EMINENT SOURCES) It seemeth but fair that I, John Longbowe, should set down this account of such hap and adventure as hath befallen me, without flourish, vaporing, or cozening of speech, but as becometh one who, not being a ready writer, goeth straight to the matter in hand in few words.

So, though I offend some, I shall yet convince all, the which lieth closer to my purpose.