Publisher's Synopsis
WITH the exception of two articles and two sets of verses, the contents of this book have previously appeared in "Punch." For the last time I render my thanks to the Proprietors of that paper for permission to reprint. It is the last time, because this sort of writing depends largely upon the irresponsibility and high spirits of youth for its success, and I want to stop before (may I say "before"?) the high spirits become mechanical and the irresponsibility a trick. Perhaps the fact that this collection is final will excuse its air of scrappiness. Odd Verses have crept in on the unanswerable plea that, if they didn't do it now, they never would; War Sketches protested that I shouldn't have a book at all if I left them out, and expressed the hope that anyhow I wasn't ashamed of them; an Early Article, omitted from three previous volumes, paraded for the fourth time with such a pathetic "I suppose you don't want me" in its eye that it could not decently be rejected. So here they all are. Whatever their crimes, they assure you that they won't do it again." --A.A.M
