TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. The name Dvořák uses the letter r with a caron; this letter may display incorrectly on some devices. Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. The Four-Masted Cat-Boat [Illustration] The Four-Masted Cat-Boat And Other Truthful Tales By Charles Battell Loomis With illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn [Illustration] New York The Century Co. 1899 Copyright, 1899, by THE CENTURY CO. THE DE VINNE PRESS. TO MY BROTHER HARVEY WORTHINGTON LOOMIS I DEDICATE THIS COLLECTION OF SKETCHES C. B. L. Preface To send a book into the world without a preface is like thrusting a bashful man into a room full of company without introducing him; and there could be only one thing worse than that,--to a bashful man,--and that would be to introduce him. In introducing my book to the reader (how like a book-agent that sounds!) I wish to say that the only bond of union between the various sketches is that they were all done by the same hand--or hands, as they were written on a typewriter. Whether it would have added to their interest to have placed the same characters in each sketch is not for me to say, but it would have been a great bother to do it, and in getting up a book the thing to avoid is bother. It hasn’t bothered me to write it. I hope it won’t bother you to read it, for I’d hate to have you bothered on my account. C. B. L. Contents A FEW IDIOTISMS PAGE I. THE FOUR-MASTED CAT-BOAT 1 II. THE POOR WAS MAD 7 III. A PECULIAR INDUSTRY 10 IV. GRIGGS’S MIND 14 V. THE SIGNALS OF GRIGGS 21 VI. À LA SHERLOCK HOLMES 25 VII. MY SPANISH PARROT 30 VIII. “TO MEET MR. CAVENDISH” 35 IX. INSTINCT SUPPLIED TO HENS 41 X. A SPRING IDYL 46 XI. AN INVERTED SPRING IDYL 49 XII. AT THE CHESTNUTS’ DINNER 52