Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) A HOLIDAY IN BED And other Sketches. BY J. M. BARRIE, AUTHOR OF The Little Minister. A Window in Thrums. Auld Licht Idylls, etc. WITH A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR NEW YORK PUBLISHING COMPANY, NEW YORK. [Illustration: J. M. Barrie.] COPYRIGHTED 1892, NEW YORK PUBLISHING CO. PRESS AND BINDERY OF HISTORICAL PUBLISHING CO., PHILADELPHIA, PA. CONTENTS. PAGE. JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, 15 A HOLIDAY IN BED, 23 LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE, 37 LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE--A WEDDING IN A SMIDDY, 49 A POWERFUL DRUG, 61 EVERY MAN HIS OWN DOCTOR, 73 GRETNA GREEN REVISITED, 87 MY FAVORITE AUTHORESS, 111 THE CAPTAIN OF THE SCHOOL, 121 THOUGHTFUL BOYS MAKE THOUGHTFUL MEN, 131 IT, 145 TO THE INFLUENZA, 153 FOUR-IN-HAND NOVELISTS, 161 RULES ON CARVING, 173 ON RUNNING AFTER A HAT, 179 JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE. James Matthew Barrie was born at Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, on May 9, 1860. Kirriemuir, as soberly stated by the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, is "a borough of barony and a market town of Forfarshire, Scotland, beautifully situated on an eminence above the glen through which the Gairie flows. It lies about five miles northwest of Forfar, and about sixty-two miles north of Edinburgh. The special industry of the town is linen weaving, for which large power-loom factories have recently been built." Mr. Barrie has made his birthplace famous as Thrums, after hesitating for a little between that name and Whins, which is the word used in the earliest Auld Licht sketches. Only a part of Mr. Barrie's boyhood was spent in Kirriemuir. At an early age he went to Dumfries, where his brother was inspector of schools. He was a pupil in the Dumfries Academy. At that time Thomas Carlyle was a not unfrequent visitor to the town, where his sister, Mrs. Aitken, and his friend, the venerable poet editor Thomas Aird, were then living.