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[Illustration: _His symphony depicted the sorrows of Russia, the height of the steppes, and the agonies of indigestion._]
_The author thanks_ LIFE, JUDGE, THE CENTURY, THE QUILL, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE LITERARY REVIEW, _and_ THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE _for kind permission to include in this volume certain contributions to those publications. He hopes he has remembered to ask such permission in each case._
As good form requires that an author mention in his preface the persons to whom he is chiefly indebted, I take this opportunity of stating that during the preparation of this book I became appreciably indebted to Dr. Warren S. Holder, my dentist, Mr. William Vroom, my tailor, Mr. M. Tesshow, my stationer and tobacconist, and Messrs. Acker, Merrall & Condit, my grocers.
Although these gentlemen neither "corrected the proofs" of my book nor "saw it through the press," nor allowed me access to rare documents and family letters, nor treated me to intimate accounts of their fathers and great uncles as they knew them; though they did none of these customary things, nevertheless I became decidedly their debtor--and still am.
Indeed, without their stimulus this book might never have been written.
Have you ever, on returning home from a round of calls, discovered upon your coat a large, obtrusive spot?
Stricken with horror, you wonder how long it has been there. Did you have this adjunct when you appeared before your wealthy aunt? That severe female has never quite approved of you, and now this will finish you as far as she is concerned. Did you exhibit yourself thus disgraced at the Brumleighs'? You recollect that the maid eyed you queerly when she opened the door, and that Mrs. B. had frequent recourse to her lorgnettes. Then, too, both the Greens and the Worthingtons seemed a little stiffer than usual.
How did you acquire it, anyhow? It looks and feels like ice cream of a very rich quality; ice cream that has drippled merrily in leaps and bounds. But you had no ice cream today. Neither did you talk to anyone who was having ice cream.