Titles and Dedications

I wanted to call these exercises "Casual Ablutions," in memory of the immortal sign in the washroom of the British Museum, but my arbiter of elegance forbade it. You remember that George Gissing, homeless and penniless on London streets, used to enjoy the lavatory of the Museum Reading Room as a fountain and a shrine. But the flinty hearted trustees, finding him using the wash-stand for bath-tub and laundry, were exceeding wroth, and set up the notice

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  |    THESE BASINS ARE FOR    |
  |   CASUAL ABLUTIONS ONLY    |
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I would like to issue the same warning to the implacable reader: these fugitive pieces, very casual rinsings in the great basin of letters, must not be too bitterly resented, even by their publishers. To borrow O. Henry's joke, they are more demitasso than Tasso.

The real purpose in writing books is to have the pleasure of dedicating them to someone, and here I am in a quandary. So many dedications have occurred to me, it seems only fair to give them all a chance.

    I thought of dedicating the book to
        CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER
          The Laird of Westcolang
    I thought of dedicating to the
        TWO BEST BOOK SHOPS IN THE WORLD
          Blackwell's in Oxford and
          Leary's in Philadelphia
    I thought of dedicating to
        THE 8:13 TRAIN
    I thought of dedicating to
        EDWARD PAGE ALLINSON
      The Squire of Town's End Farm
        Better known as Mifflin McGill
          In affectionate memory of
            Many unseasonable jests

    I thought of dedicating to
        PROFESSOR FRANCIS B. GUMMERE
          From an erring pupil
    I thought of dedicating to
        FRANCIS R. BELLAMY
      Author of "The Balance"
        Whose Talent I Revere,
      But Whose Syntax I Deplore
    I thought of dedicating to
        JOHN N. BEFFEL
        My First Editor
      Who insisted on taking me seriously
    I thought of dedicating to
        GUY S.K. WHEELER
          The Lion Cub
    I thought of dedicating to
        ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY
          The Urbanolater
    I thought of dedicating to
        SILAS ORRIN HOWES
          Faithful Servant of Letters
    But my final and irrevocable decision is to dedicate this book to
        THE MIEHLE PRINTING PRESS
      More Sinned Against Than Sinning

For permission to reprint, I denounce The New York Evening Post, The Boston Transcript, The Bellman, The Smart Set, The New York Sun, The New York Evening Sun, The American Oxonian, Collier's, and The Ladies' Home Journal.

Wyncote, Pa.

November. 1917.

SHANDYGAFF: a very refreshing drink, being a mixture of bitter ale or beer and ginger-beer, commonly drunk by the lower classes in England, and by strolling tinkers, low church parsons, newspaper men, journalists, and prizefighters. Said to have been invented by Henry VIII as a solace for his matrimonial difficulties. It is believed that a continual bibbing of shandygaff saps the will, the nerves, the resolution, and the finer faculties, but there are those who will abide no other tipple.

John Mistletoe: Dictionary of Deplorable Facts.