which starts here about a month before the present time. I has been
working for Judge Priest for going on sixteen years and is expecting to go
on working for him as long as we can get along together all right, which
it seems like from appearances that ought to be always. But after he gives
up being circuit judge on account of him getting along so in age he gets
sort of fretful by reasons of him not having much to do any more and most
of his own friends having died off on him. When the State begins going
Republican about once in so often, he says to me, kind of half joking,
he's a great mind to pull up stakes and move off and go live somewheres
else. But pretty soon after that the whole country goes dry and then he
says to me there just naturally ain't no fitten place left for him to go
without he leaves the United States."

It seems that Judge Priest finally succumbed to an invitation to visit
Bermuda, a place where a gentleman can still raise a thirst and satisfy
it. Jeff could not stand the house without the Judge in it; and when an
opportunity came to go to New York, Jeff went.

=iii=

The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, editor of Munsey's Magazine,
whose authoritative account I take pleasure in reprinting here--the more
so because it appeared some time ago in a booklet which is now out of
print. Mr. Davis's article was first printed in The Sun, New York:

"Let me deal with this individual in a categorical way. Most biographers
prefer to mutilate their canvas with a small daub which purports to be a
sketch of the most significant event in the life of the accused. Around
this it is their custom to paint smaller and less impressive scenes,
blending the whole by placing it in a large gilded frame, which, for
obvious reasons, costs more than the picture--and it is worth more. Pardon
me, therefore, if I creep upon Mr. Cobb from the lower left-hand corner of
the canvas and chase him across the open space as rapidly as possible. It
is not for me to indicate when the big events in his life will occur or to
lay the milestones of the route along which he will travel. I know only
that they are in the future, and that, regardless of any of his
achievements in the past, Irvin Cobb has not yet come into his own.

"The first glimpse I had of him was in a half-tone portrait in the New
York Evening World five years ago. This picture hung pendant-like from a
title which read 'Through Funny Glasses, by Irvin S. Cobb.' It was