Shandygaff

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Shandygaff, by Christopher Morley

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Title: Shandygaff
Author: Christopher Morley
Release Date: October 13, 2004 [eBook #13739]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SHANDYGAFF
by
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
1918

A number of most agreeable Inquirendoes upon Life & Letters, interspersed with Short Stories & Skits, the whole most Diverting to the Reader

[Illustration: Photo by Charles H. Davis
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, AUTHOR OF SHANDYGAFF, WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS, THUNDER ON THE LEFT, ETC.]

TITLES AND DEDICATIONS
I wanted to call these exercises "Casual Ablutions," in memory of the immortal sign in the washroom of the British Museum, but my arbiter of elegance forbade it. You remember that George Gissing, homeless and penniless on London streets, used to enjoy the lavatory of the Museum Reading Room as a fountain and a shrine. But the flinty hearted trustees, finding him using the wash-stand for bath-tub and laundry, were exceeding wroth, and set up the notice
+----------------------------+
THESE BASINS ARE FOR CASUAL ABLUTIONS ONLY
+----------------------------+
I would like to issue the same warning to the implacable reader: these fugitive pieces, very casual rinsings in the great basin of letters, must not be too bitterly resented, even by their publishers. To borrow O. Henry's joke, they are more demitasso than Tasso.
The real purpose in writing books is to have the pleasure of dedicating them to someone, and here I am in a quandary. So many dedications have occurred to me, it seems only fair to give them all a chance.
I thought of dedicating the book to CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER The Laird of Westcolang
I thought of dedicating to the TWO BEST BOOK SHOPS IN THE WORLD Blackwell's in Oxford and Leary's in Philadelphia
I thought of dedicating to THE 8:13 TRAIN
I thought of dedicating to EDWARD PAGE ALLINSON The Squire of Town's End Farm Better known as Mifflin McGill In affectionate memory of Many unseasonable jests
I thought of dedicating to PROFESSOR FRANCIS B. GUMMERE From an erring pupil
I thought of dedicating to FRANCIS R. BELLAMY Author of "The Balance" Whose Talent I Revere, But Whose Syntax I Deplore
I thought of dedicating to JOHN N. BEFFEL My First Editor Who insisted on taking me seriously
I thought of dedicating to GUY S.K. WHEELER The Lion Cub
I thought of dedicating to ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY The Urbanolater
I thought of dedicating to SILAS ORRIN HOWES Faithful Servant of Letters
But my final and irrevocable decision is to dedicate this book to THE MIEHLE PRINTING PRESS More Sinned Against Than Sinning
* * * * *
For permission to reprint, I denounce The New York Evening Post, The Boston Transcript, The Bellman, The Smart Set, The New York Sun, The New York Evening Sun, The American Oxonian, Collier's, and The Ladies' Home Journal.
Wyncote, Pa.
November. 1917.

SHANDYGAFF: a very refreshing drink, being a mixture of bitter ale or beer and ginger-beer, commonly drunk by the lower classes in England, and by strolling tinkers, low church parsons, newspaper men, journalists, and prizefighters. Said to have been invented by Henry VIII as a solace for his matrimonial difficulties. It is believed that a continual bibbing of shandygaff saps the will, the nerves, the resolution, and the finer faculties, but there are those who will abide no other tipple.
John Mistletoe: Dictionary of Deplorable Facts.

CONTENTS
The Song of Shandygaff
Titles and Dedications
A Question of Plumage
Don Marquis
The Art of Walking
Rupert Brooke
The Man
The Head of the Firm
17 Heriot Row
Frank Confessions of a Publisher's Reader
William McFee
Rhubarb
The Haunting Beauty of Strychnine
Ingo
Housebroken
The Hilarity of Hilaire
A Casual of the Sea
The Last Pipe
Time to Light the Furnace
My Friend
A Poet of Sad Vigils
Trivia
Prefaces
The Skipper
A Friend of FitzGerald
A Venture in Mysticism
An Oxford Landlady
"Peacock Pie"
The Literary Pawnshop
A Morning in Marathon
The American House of Lords
Cotswold Winds
Clouds
Unhealthy
Confessions of a Smoker
Hay Febrifuge
Appendix: Suggestions for Teachers.

A QUESTION OF PLUMAGE
Kenneth Stockton was a man of letters, and correspondingly poor. He was the literary editor of a leading metropolitan daily; but this job only netted him fifty dollars a week, and he was lucky to get that much. The owner of the paper was powerfully in favour of having the reviews done by the sporting editor, and confining them to the books of those publishers who bought advertising space. This simple and statesmanlike view the owner had frequently expressed in Mr. Stockton's hearing, so the latter was never very sure how long his job would continue.
But Mr. Stockton had a house, a wife, and four children in New Utrecht, that very ingenious suburb of Brooklyn. He had worked the problem out to a nicety long ago. If he did not bring home, on the average, eighty dollars a week, his household would