Copyright, 1898, by James Gordon Bennett
Copyright, 1899, by Frank Munsey
Copyright, 1899, by The Century Co.
Copyright, 1898, 1899, 1901, by Robert Howard Russell
Copyright, 1900, by Harper & Brothers
Acknowledgments are due to the New York Herald, The Puritan, Harper's Bazar, and The Century Magazine, in which periodicals these stories were originally printed.
TO FRIENDS, OLD AND NEW
I suppose the very best pay that ever comes to anyone who writes a book is to know that the ones he wrote it for really like it. When they like it well enough to write and tell him so, though they have never seen him, and perhaps never will, then he feels very proud indeed, and happy. Perhaps he even looks at himself in the looking-glass to make sure he is really the one who did it, though of course he wouldn't have anyone see him doing it, or think him vain, for anything.
The publisher is only going to let me print one of the ever-so-many nice letters that have come for the man who wrote the Hollow Tree stories and the other man who drew the pictures for them. So I've picked out one that is for both of us, and that is signed by three, which makes it equal to six letters, three for each of us, and as nice letters as anyone who writes books for other folks to read could ever wish to have.