"'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,"--and, to my mind, Greenwich Village has a very personal soul that requires very personal and very careful handling. This little foreword is to crave pardon humbly if my touch has not been light, or deft, or sure. There are so many things that I may have left out, so many ways in which I must have erred. And I want to thank people too,--just here. So many people there are to thank! I cannot simply dismiss the matter with the usual acknowledgment of a list of authorities--to which, by the bye, I have tried to cling as though.
