Blister Jones

I dedicate this, my first book, with awe and the deepest affection, to Mulvaney--Mowgil--Kim, and all the wonderful rest of them.

J. T. F.

A certain magazine, that shall be nameless, I read every month. Not because its pale contents, largely furnished by worthy ladies, contain many red corpuscles, but because as a child I saw its numbers lying upon the table in the "library," as much a part of that table as the big vase lamp that glowed above it.

My father and mother read the magazine with much enjoyment, for, doubtless, when its editor was young, the precious prose and poetry of Araminta Perkins and her ilk satisfied him not at all.

Therefore, in memory of days that will never come again, I read this old favorite; sometimes--I must confess it--with pain.

It chanced that a story about horses--aye, race horses--was approved and sanctified by the august editor.

This story, when I found it sandwiched between Jane Somebody's Impressions Upon Seeing an Italian Hedge, and three verses entitled Resurgam, or something like that, I straightway bore to "Blister" Jones, horse-trainer by profession and gentleman by instinct.

"What that guy don't know about a hoss would fill a book," was his comment after I had read him the story.

I rather agreed with this opinion and so--here is the book.