E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Marcia Brooks,
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PIPEFULS
Other Books by the Author
Parnassus on WheelsThe Haunted Bookshop
Shandygaff
Mince Pie
Kathleen
Songs for a Little House
The Rocking Horse
Hide and Seek
Travels in Philadelphia
PIPEFULS
BY
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
ILLUSTRATED
BY
WALTER JACK DUNCAN
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
TO
THREE MEN
HULBERT FOOTNER
EUGENE SAXTON
WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT
BECAUSE, IF I MENTIONED ONLY ONE
OF THEM, I WOULD HAVE TO
WRITE BOOKS
TO INSCRIBE TO THE OTHER TWO
PREFACE
Sir Thomas Browne said that Eve was “edifiedout of the rib of Adam.” This little book wasedified (for the most part) out of the ribs of twofriendly newspapers, The New York Evening Postand The Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. Tothem, and to The Bookman, Everybody's, and ThePublishers' Weekly, I am grateful for permission toreprint.
Tristram Shandy said, “When a man is hemm'd inby two indecorums, and must commit one of 'emlet him chuse which he will, the world will blamehim.” Now it is one indecorum to let this collectionof small sketches go out (as they do) unrevisedand just as they assaulted the defencelessreader of the daily prints; and the other indecorumwould be to take fragments of this kind too gravely,and attempt by more careful disposition of theirpallid members to arrange them into some appearanceof painless decease. As Gilbert Chestertonsaid (I wish I could say, on a similar occasion):“Their vices are too vital to be improved with ablue pencil, or with anything I can think of, exceptdynamite.”...