Chapter I

_From the Editor of "The Globe Fiction Magazine" to Aubrey Aston,
Esq._
_May 5th._

DEAR MR. ASTON,--We are extremely sorry that we cannot see our way to using _Red Shadows_. The idea is an excellent one, if a trifle improbable. But you must be aware that West Africa has been worse handled by fiction-writers than any other locality, and we are afraid we dare not risk publishing a story in which the writer has drawn on his imagination for local colour, however vivid that imagination may be. The West African expert at our office assures us that _Red Shadows_ contains some inaccuracies which would be bound to spring to the eye of any reader who had been near the West Coast. We cannot imperil the reputation of a magazine so widely circulated as ours, and we feel that in returning the MS. we are in some degree safeguarding your own. Thanking you for the many excellent stories you have let us have,

Yours very truly,
J. W. INGLEBY, Editor.