xii. PREFACE. 



" Happen fifty year sin'." 



His pathway through life had been over rugged places, 

 but the remembrance of that one bright morning stood 

 clearly out 



The greenest spot on mem'ry's waste, 



and he was all unconscious that the faithless brook had long 

 been dry. 



Some of the stories and sayings that follow came from 

 such men as these ; some, I regret to say, I invented ; others 

 I have known ever since I knew anything, and a retentive 

 memory and vivid imagination have in places taken naked 

 incidents and clothed them. There is a little angling in the 

 book made up from the observations of a long and varied 

 experience. The rest, it is hoped, you may think is all good 

 humour. 



A friend of mine, who was the editor of a great daily 

 paper, once boldly declared at a public dinner that a good 

 story was the personal property of the man who told it 

 at the right moment. If this be accepted as correct, then I 

 may claim some, at least, of those that follow, inasmuch as 

 they were originally used, relevantly and otherwise, to illus- 

 trate and brighten a series of articles contributed by me 

 during some years to the Yorkshire Weekly Post, and they are 

 now collected and published in this form by permission of 

 the editor of the Yorkshire Post. 



T, E. PRITT. 



Headingley, July, 1895. 



