For permission to reprint, I denounce The New York _Evening Post_, The Boston _Transcript_, The _Bellman_, The _Smart Set_, The New York _Sun_, The New York _Evening Sun_, The _American Oxonian_, _Collier's_, and The _Ladies' Home Journal_. Wyncote, Pa. November. 1917. SHANDYGAFF: a very refreshing drink, being a mixture of bitter ale or beer and ginger-beer, commonly drunk by the lower classes in England, and by strolling tinkers, low church parsons, newspaper men, journalists, and prizefighters. Said to have been invented by Henry VIII as a solace for his matrimonial difficulties. It is believed that a continual bibbing of shandygaff saps the will, the nerves, the resolution, and the finer faculties, but there are those who will abide no other tipple. John Mistletoe: _Dictionary of Deplorable Facts_. CONTENTS The Song of Shandygaff Titles and Dedications A Question of Plumage Don Marquis The Art of Walking Rupert Brooke The Man The Head of the Firm 17 Heriot Row Frank Confessions of a Publisher's Reader William McFee Rhubarb The Haunting Beauty of Strychnine Ingo Housebroken The Hilarity of Hilaire A Casual of the Sea The Last Pipe Time to Light the Furnace My Friend A Poet of Sad Vigils Trivia Prefaces The Skipper A Friend of FitzGerald A Venture in Mysticism An Oxford Landlady "Peacock Pie" The Literary Pawnshop A Morning in Marathon The American House of Lords Cotswold Winds Clouds Unhealthy Confessions of a Smoker Hay Febrifuge Appendix: Suggestions for Teachers. A QUESTION OF PLUMAGE Kenneth Stockton was a man of letters, and correspondingly poor. He was the literary editor of a leading metropolitan daily; but this job only netted him fifty dollars a week, and he was lucky to get that much. The owner of the paper was powerfully in favour of having the reviews done by the sporting editor, and confining them to the books of those publishers who bought advertising space. This simple and statesmanlike view the owner had frequently expressed in Mr. Stockton's hearing, so the latter was never very sure how long his job would continue.