If any one in this wide, old world, after reading the wealth of evidence in this little volume, still thinks Young E. Allison did not write "Derelict," let him come to me like a man and say so and I'll give him a good swift stab in the eye, with my eye, and say: "You don't want to be convinced." This includes the editor of _The New York Times Book Review_. When he made an egregious blunder by stating that "Derelict" was an unskilled sailor's jingle, a wave of protest reached him. He then printed Walt Mason's letter describing the poem as a work of art and altered his editorial characterization of it to "famous old chanty." In the same breath he wrote that it was not likely that Mr. Allison was the author--but why not likely? It is plain that somebody must have written it. Nobody else's name had ever been associated with it. The _Times_ man had nobody to suggest as the author. Why, then, maintain that Mr. Allison was not the author? His sole reason is that the "Bowdlerized" and bastard version which he printed had been _copied from a manuscript written into an old book printed in 1843_! What does the ink say about dates? What do the pen marks say? Great gods and little fishes! If ever I shall desire to antiquitize a modernity I'll copy it into an old book and send a transcript to that delightful Babe of the Woods of _The New York Times Book Review_. When _Rubric_, a Chicago magazine venture of attractiveness, but doomed in advance to failure, published Allison's poem under the title "On Board the Derelict," I detached three sets of the eight illustrated and illuminated pages on which it was printed, had the sheets inlaid in hand-made paper and neatly bound. This was accomplished with the sage advice of my old playmate, Frank M. Morris, the bookman of Chicago. One of these volumes was made for Mr. Allison, (so that he would surely have at least one copy of his own poem), a second was for my bookish friend, James F. Joseph, then of Chicago and now of Indianapolis, and a third was for my own library. The mere fact that Allison was five years autographing my particular copy has no bearing whatever in this discussion, but leads me to say that I felt amply repaid in the end by this very handsome inscription on the fly-leaf: This Volume, No. 1 of the limited private edition of "On Board the Derelict," is for the private delight of my dear friend, Champion Ingraham Hitchcock, the publisher and designer thereof--appreciative guide, counselor and encourager of other excursions into "the higher altitudes,"--with all love and long memory Christmas, 1906. YOUNG E. ALLISON.