"debauched by learning" (in Doctor Johnson's phrase) will scrutinize
them too anxiously.

It seems to me, on reading the proofs, that the skit entitled "Trials of
a President Travelling Abroad" is a faint and subconscious echo of a
passage in a favorite of my early youth, _Happy Thoughts_, by the late
F.C. Burnand. If this acknowledgment should move anyone to read that
delicious classic of pleasantry, the innocent plunder may be pardonable.

And now a word of obeisance. I take this opportunity of thanking several
gentle overseers and magistrates who have been too generously friendly
to these eccentric gestures. These are Mr. Robert Cortes Holliday,
editor of _The Bookman_ and victim of the novelette herein entitled "Owd
Bob"; Mr. Edwin F. Edgett, literary editor of The Boston _Transcript_,
who has often permitted me to cut outrageous capers in his hospitable
columns; and Mr. Thomas L. Masson, of _Life_, who allows me to reprint
several of the shorter pieces. But most of all I thank Mr. David E.
Smiley, editor of the Philadelphia _Evening Public Ledger_, for whom
the majority of these sketches were written, and whose patience and
kindness have been a frequent amazement to

THE AUTHOR.

PHILADELPHIA _September, 1919_

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