_On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin
the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late
literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers,
sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I
should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may
concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be
distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for
Mr. Wilkinson's statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the
medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye._
_J. K. B._
"Over the Plum-Pudding"
I
[Illustration: Decorative I]
have been asked so often and by so many persons known and unknown to me
why it was that a Christmas book that was to have been issued some years
ago under my editorial supervision never appeared, although announced as
ready for immediate publication, that I feel that I should make some
statement in explanation of the seeming deception. The matter was very
annoying, both to my publishers and to myself at the time it happened,
and while I was anxious then to make public a full and candid statement
of the facts as they occurred, Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway deemed
it the wiser course to let the affair rest for a year or two anyhow.
They failed to see my point of view, that, while they were responsible
for the advertisement, I was assumed to be responsible for the book,
and in the event of its failure to appear it would naturally be inferred
by the public that my work had not proven sufficiently up to standard to
warrant them in continuing the venture. I did not press the matter,
however, being too busy on other affairs to give to it the attention it
deserved, and until now no opportunity to explain my connection with the
unfortunate volume has arisen. I should hesitate even at this late date
to give a wide publicity to the incident were it not that my mail has
lately been overburdened by rather peremptory requests from the several
contributors to the volume to be informed what had become of the tales
they wrote and for which they were to be paid on publication.
Ordinarily, letters of this kind I should refer to my business
principals, the publishers themselves, but in this emergency it happens,
unfortunately for me, that the publishers have been retired from
business and are now engaged in other pursuits: one of them at the
Klondike, another as a veterinary surgeon-general at Santiago, on the
appointment of the Secretary of War, and the third living somewhere
abroad incog. as the result of his having drawn out all the capital of
his partners and fled one early spring morning two years ago, leaving
behind him his best wishes and about eight thousand dollars in debts for
his partners to pay. It therefore devolves on me to explain to the irate
authors as best I can what happened. The explanation may not be shirked,
for they are wholly within their rights in demanding it. My only hope is
that they will be satisfied with my statement, although I am quite
conscious, sadly so, of the fact that to certain suspicious minds it may
seem to lack credibility.