and Homer, perceive the bitter inefficacy of
fighting the scientific critics. Walt Mason saw the versification
was artful instead of "bungling and crude," but the _Times_ critic
knows a copy out of a "chanty book" when he sees it.

I envy your being unpublished. You do not have to bleed with me and
Homer and Bill. I feel the desiccating effects of my own dishonor.
I grow distrustful. I wonder if _you_ wrote _your_ poems. You
refused to publish. Were you, astute and keen reader of auguries,
afraid of being found out? Who writes all these magnificent things
that me and Homer and Bill couldn't and didn't write?

No, I don't owe it to my friends to settle this. I'd a sight rather
plead guilty and accept indeterminate sentence than to waste time
on my friends. I've got 'em or I haven't. And I want to convince
enemies by a profound and dignified sneak.

From one who has had dirt done him.
MANTELLINI
Louisville, Oct. 6, 1914.

[11] Issue of October 10, 1914.

SOME CLIPPINGS; _and_ A LETTER

The controversial comments on Allison's "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's
Chest," heretofore mentioned, appeared in _The New York Times Book Review_
of September 20, 1914, and October 4, 1914, while the inquiry that
precipitated the discussion was published July 26. The printed matter,
_verbatim et literatim_, and the matter not printed, are subjoined:

_July 26, 1914._

APPEALS TO READERS

EDWARD ALDEN.--Can some reader tell me if the verse or chorus of a
pirate's song, which Robert Louis Stevenson recites several times
in whole or in part in "Treasure Island," was original or quoted;
and, if there are other verses, where they may be found? The lines
as Stevenson gives them are:

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ha and a bottle of rum;
Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo-ho-ha and a bottle of rum.

* * * * *

_September 20, 1914._

ANSWERS FROM READERS

W. L.--The verse about which Edward Alden inquired in your issue of
July 26. and which is quoted in Stevenson's "Treasure Island," is
the opening stanza of an old song or chantey of West Indian piracy,
which is believed to have originated from the wreck of an English
buccaneer on a cay in the Ca