SANDBURRS By Alfred Henry Lewis Author of “Wolfville,” etc. Illustrated by Horace Taylor and George B. Luks Second Edition New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company 1898 [Illustration: 0001] [Illustration: 0008] [Illustration: 0009] TO JAMES ROBERT KEENE PREFACE A SANDBURR is a foolish, small vegetable, irritating and grievously useless. Therefore this volume of sketches is named Sandburrs. Some folk there be who apologize for the birth of a book. There's scant propriety of it. A book is but a legless, dormant creature. The public has but to let it alone to be safe. And a book, withal! is its own punishment. Is it a bad book? the author loses. Is it very bad? the publisher loses. In any case the public is preserved. For all of which there will be no apology for SAND-BURRS. Nor will I tell what I think of it. No; this volume may make its own running, without the handicap of my apology, or the hamstringing of my criticism. There should be more than one to do the latter with the least of luck. The Bowery dialect--if it be a dialect--employed in sundry of these sketches is not an exalted literature. The stories told are true, however; so much may they have defence. A. H. L. New York, Nov. 15, 1899. SANDBURRS SPOT AND PINCHER. Martin is the barkeeper of an East Side hotel--not a good hotel at all--and flourishes as a sporting person of much emphasis. Martin, in passing, is at the head of the dog-fighting brotherhood. I often talk with Martin and love him very much. Last week I visited Martin's bar. There was “nothin' doin',” to quote from Martin. We talked of fighting men, a subject near to Martin, he having fought three prize-fights himself. Martin boasted himself as still being “an even break wit' any rough-and-tumble scrapper in d' bunch.” “Come here,” said Martin, in course of converse; “come here; I'll show you a bute.” Martin opened a door to the room back of the bar. As we entered a pink-white bull terrier, with black spots about the eyes, raced across to fawn on Martin. The terrier's black toe-nails, bright and hard as agate, made a vast clatter on the ash floor. “This is Spot,” said Martin. “Weighs thirty-three pounds, and he's a hully terror! I'm goin' to fight him to-night for five hundred dollars.” I stooped to express with a pat on his smooth white head my approbation of Spot. “Pick him up, and heft him,” said Martin. “He won't nip you,” 'he continued, as I hesitated; “bulls is; d' most manful dogs there bees. Bulls won't bite nobody.” Thereupon I picked up Spot “to heft him.” Spot smiled widely, wagged his stumpy tail, tried to lick my face, and felt like a bundle of live steel.