Acknowledgment is due to the following publishers, whose permission was cordially granted to reprint selections which appear in this collection of American humor.

Ainslee's Magazine for "Not According to Schedule," by Mary Stewart Cutting.

The Henry Altemus Company for "The New Version," by William J. Lampton.

The American Publishing Company for "How We Bought a Sewin' Machine and Organ," from Josiah Allen's Wife as a P.A. and P.I., by Marietta Holley.

D. Appleton & Company for "The Recruit," from With the Band, by Robert W. Chambers.

E.H. Bacon & Company for "The V-a-s-e" and "A Concord Love-Song," from The V-a-s-e and Other Bric-a-Brac, by James Jeffrey Roche.

The H.M. Caldwell Company for "Yes" and "Disappointment," from In Bohemia, by John Boyle O'Reilly.

The Colver Publishing House for "The Crimson Cord," by Ellis Parker Butler, and "A Ballade of the 'How to' Books," by John James Davies, from The American Illustrated Magazine.

The Crowell Publishing Company for "Familiar Authors at Work," by Hayden Carruth, from The Woman's Home Companion.

The Curtis Publishing Company for "The Love Sonnets of a Husband," by Maurice Smiley, and "Cheer for the Consumer," by Nixon Waterman, from The Saturday Evening Post.

DeWolfe, Fiske & Company for "Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready for Sunday-School," from Cape Cod Folks, by Sarah P. McLean Greene.

Dick & Fitzgerald for "The Thompson Street Poker Club," from The Thompson Street Poker Club, by Henry Guy Carleton.

G.W. Dillingham Company for "The Tower of London" and "Science and Natural History," by Charles Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"); "The Musketeer," from Farmer's Alminax, and "Laffing," from Josh Billings: His Works, by Henry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings"); and for "John Henry in a Street Car," from John Henry, by George V. Hobart ("Hugh McHugh").

Dodd, Mead & Company for "The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark," "The Forbearance of the Admiral," "The Dutiful Mariner," "The Meditations of a Mariner" and "The Boat that Ain't," from Nautical Lays of a Landsman, by Wallace Irwin.

The Duquesne Distributing Company for "The Grand Opera," from Billy Baxter's Letters, by William J. Kountz, Jr.

Paul Elder & Company for Sonnets I, VIII, IX, XII, XIV, XXI, from The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, by Wallace Irwin.

Everybody's Magazine for "The Strike of One," by Elliott Flower; "The Wolf's Holiday," by Caroline Duer; "A Mother of Four," by Juliet Wilbor Tompkins; "The Weddin'," by Jennie Betts Hartswick, and "A Double-Dyed Deceiver," by Sydney Porter ("O. Henry").

The Federal Book Company for "Budge and Toddie," from Helen's Babies, by John Habberton.

Fords, Howard & Hurlburt, for "The Deacon's Trout," from Norwood, by Henry Ward Beecher.

Fox, Duffield & Company for "The Paintermine," "The Octopussycat," "The Welsh Rabbittern," "The Bumblebeaver," "The Wild Boarder," from Mixed Beasts, by Kenyon Cox; "The Lost Inventor," "Niagara Be Dammed," "The Ballad of Grizzly Gulch," "A Letter from Home," "Crankidoxology" and "Fall Styles in Faces," from At the Sign of the Dollar, by Wallace Irwin, and a selection from The Golfer's Rubaiyat, by Henry W. Boynton.

The Harvard Lampoon for "A Lay of Ancient Rome," by Thomas Ybarra.

Henry Holt & Company for "Araminta and the Automobile," from Cheerful Americans, by Charles Battell Loomis.

Houghton, Mifflin & Company for "A Letter from Mr. Biggs," from The Story of a Country Town, by E.W. Howe; "The Notary of Perigueux," from Outre-Mer, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "A Nautical Ballad," from Davy and the Goblin, by Charles E. Carryl; "The Spring Beauties," from The Ride to the Lady, by Helen Avery Cone; "Praise-God Barebones," from Songs and Lyrics, by Ellen M. Hutchinson-Cortissoz; "Fable," from Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; "The Owl Critic" and "CÆsar's Quiet Lunch with Cicero," from Ballads and Other Poems, by James T. Fields; "The Menagerie," from Poems, by William Vaughn Moody; "The Briefless Barrister," "Comic Miseries," "A Reflective Retrospect," "How the Money Goes," "The Coquette," "Icarus," "Teaching by Example," from Poems, by John Godfrey Saxe; "My Honey, My Love," by Joel Chandler Harris; "Banty Tim," "The Mystery of Gilgal" and "Distichs," from Poems, by John Hay; "The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One Hoss Shay," "The Height of the Ridiculous," "Evening, By a Tailor," "Latter Day Warnings," and "Contentment," from Poems, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; two selections from The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and "Dislikes," from The Poet at the Breakfast Table, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; "Plain Language from Truthful James," and "The Society Upon the Stanislaus," from Poems, by Bret Harte; "Melons," from Mrs. Skaggs' Husbands and Other Sketches, by Bret Harte; "The Courtin'," "A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow" and "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," from Poems, by James Russell Lowell; "The Chief Mate," from Fireside Travels, by James Russell Lowell; "A Night in a Rocking Chair" and "A Rival Entertainment," from Haphazard, by Kate Field; "Mrs. Johnson," from Suburban Sketches, by William Dean Howells; "Garden Ethics," from My Summer in a Garden, by Charles Dudley Warner; "Our Nearest Neighbor," from Marjorie Daw and Other Stories, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich; "Simon Starts in the World" (J.J. Hooper), "The Duluth Speech" (J. Proctor Knott), "Bill Arp on Litigation" (C.H. Smith), "Assault and Battery" (J.G. Baldwin), "How Ruby Played" (G.W. Bagby), from Oddities of Southern Life, edited by Henry Watterson; "The Demon of the Study," from Poems, by John Greenleaf Whittier; "The Old Maid's House: in Plan," from An Old Maid's Paradise, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; "Dum Vivimus Vigilamus," "What She Said About It," "Dictum Sapienti," "The Lost Word" and "Abou Ben Butler," from Poems, by Charles Henry Webb ("John Paul"); "Chad's Story of the Goose" and "Colonel Carter's Story of the Postmaster," from Colonel Carter of Cartersville, by F. Hopkinson Smith; "The British Matron," from Our Old Home, by Nathaniel Hawthorne; "As Good as a Play," from Stories from My Attic, by Horace E. Scudder; "The Pettibone Lineage," by James T. Fields; "The Experiences of the A.C.," by Bayard Taylor; "Eve's Daughter," by Edward Rowland Sill, and "The Diamond Wedding," by Edmund Clarence Stedman.

William R. Jenkins for "It Is Time to Begin to Conclude," from Soldier Songs and Love Songs, by Alexander H. Laidlaw.

John Lane Company for "The Invisible Prince," from Comedies and Errors, by Henry Harland.

Life Publishing Company for "Hard," "Enough" and "Desolation," from In Merry Measure, by Tom Masson; "A Branch Library" and "Table Manners," from Tomfoolery, by James Montgomery Flagg; "The Sonnet of the Lovable Lass and the Plethoric Dad," by J.W. Foley; "Thoughts for an Easter Morning," by Wallace Irwin; "Suppressed Chapters," by Carolyn Wells; "The Conscientious Curate and the Beauteous Ballad Girl," by William Russell Rose, and "A Poe-'em of Passion," by Charles F. Lummis.

Lippincott's Magazine for "The Modern Farmer," by Jack Appleton; "The Wicked Zebra" and "The Happy Land," by Frank Roe Batchelder; "A Mothers' Meeting," by Madeline Bridges; "The Final Choice" and "A Daniel Come to Judgment," by Edmund Vance Cooke; "The Co-operative Housekeepers" and "Her 'Angel' Father," by Elliott Flower; "Wasted Opportunities," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Auto Rubaiyat," by Reginald W. Kauffman; "It Pays to be Happy" and "Victory," by Tom Masson; "Is It I?" by Warwick S. Price; "Johnny's Lessons," by Carroll Watson Rankin; "Her Brother: Enfant Terrible" and "Trouble-Proof," by E.L. Sabin; "A Bookworm's Plaint," by Clinton Scollard; "Nothin' Done," by S.S. Stinson, and "Uncle Bentley and the Roosters," by Hayden Carruth.

Little, Brown & Company for "Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper," from The Peterkin Papers, by Lucretia P. Hale; "The Skeleton in the Closet," by Edward Everett Hale, and "The Wolf at Susan's Door," from The Wolf at Susan's Door and Mrs. Lathrop's Love Affair, by Anne Warner.

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard for "A Letter," from Swingin' Round the Circle, by David Ross Locke ("P. V. Nasby"); "A Cable Car Preacher" and "The Prayer of Cyrus Brown," from Dreams in Homespun, by Sam Walter Foss; "He Wanted to Know," "Hullo!" and "She Talked," from Back Country Poems, by Sam Walter Foss; "Mr. Stiver's Horse" and "After the Funeral," from the works of James M. Bailey (The Danbury News Man); "Yawcob Strauss," "Der Oak und der Vine," "To Bary Jade" and "Shonny Schwartz," from Leetle Yawcob Strauss, by Charles Follen Adams; "The Coupon Bonds" and "Darius Greene," from the works of J.T. Trowbridge, and Chapters VII, IX, XVI, XX, XXI, from "Partingtonian Patchwork," by B.P. Shillaber.

The S.S. McClure Company and McClure, Phillips & Company for "Morris and the Honorable Tim," from Little Citizens, by Myra Kelly.

A.C. McClurg & Company for "Simple English," from At the Sign of the Ginger Jar, by Ray Clarke Rose, and "Ye Legende of Sir Yroncladde," by Wilbur D. Nesbit, from The Athlete's Garland.

David McKay for "Hans Breitmann's Party," "Breitmann and the Turners," "Ballad," "Breitmann in Politics" and "Love Song," from Hans Breitmann's Ballads, by Charles Godfrey Leland, and "A Boston Ballad," from Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman.

The Macmillan Company for "In a State of Sin," from The Virginian, by Owen Wister.

The Monarch Book Company for "The Apostasy of William Dodge," from The Seekers, by Stanley Waterloo.

The Frank A. Munsey Company for "An Educational Project" and "The Woman-Hater Reformed," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Trial That Job Missed," by Kennett Harris; "The Education of Grandpa," by Wallace Irwin; "An Improved Calendar," by Tudor Jenks.

Small, Maynard & Company for "Mr. Dooley on Gold Seeking," "Mr. Dooley on Expert Testimony," "Mr. Dooley on Golf," "Mr. Dooley on Football," "Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates," from Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, by Finley Peter Dunne; "E.O.R.S.W." from Alphabet of Celebrities, by Oliver Herford; "A Letter," from The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, by George Horace Lorimer; "Vive La Bagatelle" and "Willy and the Lady," from A Gage of Youth, by Gelett Burgess; "When the Allegash Drive Goes Through," from Pine Tree Ballads, by Holman F. Day; "Had a Set of Double Teeth," from Up in Maine, by Holman F. Day; "Similar Cases," from In This Our World, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; "Barney McGee," by Richard Hovey, from More Songs from Vagabondia; "A Modern Eclogue," "The Sceptics," "A Staccato to O le Lupe," "A Spring Feeling," "Her Valentine" and "In Philistia," by Bliss Carman, from Last Songs from Vagabondia, and "Vive la Bagatelle," "A Cavalier's Valentine" and "Holly Song," from Hills of Song, by Clinton Scollard.

The Mutual Book Company for "James and Reginald" and "The Story of the Two Friars," from The Tribune Primer, by Eugene Field.

The Orange Judd Company for "Spelling Down the Master," from The Hoosier Schoolmaster, by Edward Eggleston.

James Pott & Company for "The Gusher," from I've Been Thinking, by Charles Battell Loomis.

G.P. Putnam's Sons for "When Albani Sang" and "The Stove Pipe Hole," from The Habitant, by William Henry Drummond; "National Philosophy," from The Voyageur, by William Henry Drummond; "The Siege of Djklxprwbz," "Grizzly-gru," "He and She," "The Jackpot," "A Shining Mark," "The Reason," "Pass" and "The Whisperer," from The Rhymes of Ironquill, by Eugene F. Ware, and "A Family Horse," from The Sparrowgrass Papers, by Frederick S. Cozzens.

Rand, McNally & Company for "An Arkansas Planter," from An Arkansas Planter, by Opie Read.

A.M. Robertson for "The Drayman," from Songs of Bohemia, by Daniel O'Connell.

R.H. Russell for "Mr. Carteret and His Fellow-Americans Abroad," by David Gray, from The Metropolitan Magazine.

The Smart Set Publishing Company for "An Evening Musicale," by May Isabel Fisk, from The Smart Set.

The Frederick A. Stokes Company for "Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt," from Wolfville Nights, by Alfred Henry Lewis; "The Bohemians of Boston," "The Purple Cow" and "Nonsense Verses," from The Burgess Nonsense Book, by Gelett Burgess, and "My Grandmother's Turkey-tail Fan," "Little Bopeep and Little Boy Blue" and "My Sweetheart," by Samuel Minturn Peck.

The Tandy-Wheeler Publishing Company for "Utah," "A New Year Idyl," "The Warrior," "Lost Chords" and "The Advertiser," from A Little Book of Tribune Verse, by Eugene Field.

Thompson & Thomas for "The Grammatical Boy," by Edgar Wilson Nye ("Bill Nye").

The A. Wessels Company for "The Dying Gag," by James L. Ford.

M. Witmark & Sons for "Walk," from Jim Marshall's New Pianner, by William Devere.

Special thanks are due to George Ade, Wallace Bruce Amsbary, John Kendrick Bangs, H.W. Boynton, Gelett Burgess, Ellis Parker Butler, Hayden Carruth, Robert W. Chambers, Charles Heber Clarke, Joseph I.C. Clarke, Mary Stewart Cutting, John James Davies, Caroline Duer, Mrs. Edward Eggleston, May Isabel Fisk, Elliott Flower, James L. Ford, David Gray, Sarah P. McLean Greene, Jennie Betts Hartswick, William Dean Howells, Wallace Irwin, Charles F. Johnson, S.E. Kiser, A.H. Laidlaw, Alfred Henry Lewis, Charles B. Lewis, Charles Battell Loomis, Charles F. Lummis, T.L. Masson, William Vaughn Moody, R.K. Munkittrick, W.D. Nesbit, Meredith Nicholson, Alden Charles Noble, Samuel Minturn Peck, Sydney Porter, Wallace Rice, James Whitcomb Riley, Doane Robinson, Henry A. Shute, F. Hopkinson Smith, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Howard V. Sutherland, John B. Tabb, Bert Leston Taylor, Juliet Wilbor Tompkins, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Eugene F. Ware, Anne Warner French and Stanley Waterloo for permission to reprint selections from their works and for many valuable suggestions.

THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA