TO
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS, Jr.
WHOSE FONDNESS FOR PLUM PUDDINGS
SUGGESTS THE PROPRIETY OF THIS
Dedication
Thanks are due to the Publishers of Harper's Round Table, Harper's Weekly, The Delineator, Life, Brooklyn Life, and the New York Mail and Express for permission to republish these stories in collected form.
"Over the Plum-Pudding"
Why it was Never Published. An authoritative Statement by its Editor.
On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers, sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for Mr. Wilkinson's statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye.
J. K. B.
