A Man in the Open

SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON Copyright 1912 The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Kate
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Except the Bear, who is no more, the characters appearing in this volume wish me to say that their breaches of etiquette, homicides, etc., are all original sins. Their infirmities of body, soul, and spirit are their own, not mimicry of yours, not a caricature of your friend, your acquaintance, of your second-hand acquaintance, or anybody you have heard about, or even of some mere celebrity. If we hold up a mirror, it is to human nature, not to you.
The characters wish me to tell you that they are all Imaginary Persons, and therefore very sensitive. The persons of a drama are protected by footlights, by the stage doorkeeper, not to mention grease paint and scalps by an eminent artiste; but the characters in a novel are thrust defenseless into a rude world, with many reporters about. In a page fright, worse even than stage fright, their only comfort is that absence of body which is their alternative to your great gift,—presence of mind.
So they make their bow under assumed names. There we come to the point. The proper names were all dealt out to worldly grasping persons, and not one was left unclaimed. The name department is like a cloak-room when the guests have departed, a train from which all passengers have alighted, an office on Christmas day. Can you blame the characters in fiction who come after you, if they assume the noblest names, such as Smith, and try to be worthy of their borrowed plumes? Surely you would not have them wear a numeral such as the number of your house, or telephone.
The chances are that they give you no offense. Suppose that gentlemen named Jesse Smith number one in each million of English-speaking people, there would be one hundred in North America, half of them adults, with a moiety in wedlock, and, of these twenty-five, a hundredth part may be stockmen, of whom say one per cent. have a flaw in their claim to wedlock. To this residuum, the .0025 part of a perfect gentleman, whom he has not the honor to know personally, our Mr. Smith tenders profound apologies.