Shandygaff / A number of most agreeable Inquirendoes upon Life & Letters, interspersed with Short Stories & Skits, the whole most Diverting to the Reader

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Shandygaff, by Christopher Morley
A number of most agreeable Inquirendoes upon Life & Letters , interspersed with Short Stories & Skits , the whole most Diverting to the Reader
1918
Photo by Charles H. Davis

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
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