NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1915
Copyright, 1897,
By Dodd, Mead and Company
PREFACE
A few years ago, the readers of "Wee Willie Winkie" detected a new vein running through the Editorial Notes and announcements which prefaced the monthly collection of juvenile literary efforts, which made up their little Magazine.
There was an originality and a humour which they had not noticed before, and Competitions were suggested to them of a type for a repetition of which they clamoured.
And then presently a new serial story began, and the hairbreadth escapes of that immortal Monkey which it recorded were breathlessly followed by Wee Willie Winkie's army of bairns all over the world; and when it was concluded, so numerous were the entreaties for a sequel, that compulsion had to be resorted to in order to secure the revelation of the later life of the hero under a new name.
And now at last the Editors who were responsible for the periodical referred to have to make a confession.
Once upon a time they both, mother and daughter, forsook their office and went away to Canada for several months in 1891, and during that time their joint editorial chair was occupied by no other than Professor Henry Drummond.