Transcriber's Note: The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Geo. S. McWatters
Photographed by Brady.
KNOTS UNTIED:
OR,
WAYS AND BY-WAYS
IN THE
HIDDEN LIFE
OF
AMERICAN DETECTIVES.
I am aware that the preface of a book is usually the last portionof it which is read—if read it is—and, therefore, of little import; and Ihave, consequently, deliberated somewhat whether I would encumberthe following tales with a prefix or not, but perhaps it is due to thereader to say (what, however, is apparent enough in some of the talesthemselves) that the experiences and observations therein narrated,are not all personally mine; that some of them have, at different times,been detailed to me by old and tried personal friends, of deep knowledgeof the world, and of extreme sagacity, and that I have presentedthem here, together with my own, in special instances, as being equallyillustrative with mine of subtle human nature.
What is specifically my own in these tales, and what little I amindebted for to my good friends, I leave to such as may be curious, todetermine for themselves. It must now suffice them (for in the experimentof "book-making" I have nearly lost my best patience—amidstits multiplicity of perplexities; its "proo