Chapter I: Front Matter

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Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive.

Over the Plum-Pudding

_by_ John Kendrick Bangs

Author of
"A House-Boat on the Styx"
"Coffee and Repartee"
"The Idiot at Home"
"The Idiot"

Illustrated

New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers 1901

Copyright, 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

TO JOHN KENDRICK BANGS, JR. WHOSE FONDNESS FOR PLUM PUDDINGS SUGGESTS THE PROPRIETY OF THIS Dedication

Thanks are due to the Publishers of _Harper's Round Table_, _Harper's Weekly_, _The Delineator_, _Life_, _Brooklyn Life_, and the New York _Mail and Express_ for permission to republish these stories in collected form.

Contents

PAGE
"OVER THE PLUM-PUDDING" 3
BILLS, M.D. 23
THE FLUNKING OF WATKINS'S GHOST 41
AN UNMAILED LETTER 67
THE AMALGAMATED BROTHERHOOD OF SPOOKS 83
A GLANCE AHEAD 105
HANS PUMPERNICKEL'S VIGIL 139
THE AFFLICTION OF BARON HUMPFELHIMMEL 157
A GREAT COMPOSER 175
HOW FRITZ BECAME A WIZARD 193
RISE AND FALL OF THE POET GREGORY 209
THE LOSS OF THE "GRETCHEN B." 223

Illustrations

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS _Frontispiece_
PARLEY CONVERSING WITH THE INVISIBLE GHOST _Facing p._ 48
"I THOUGHT A MILE WAS THE PROPER DISTANCE" 88
"HE VANISHED IN SOMETHING OF A RAGE" 94
THE SPECTRE BRASS-BAND 98
"THE THING FELL OVER LIMP" 100
"'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'" 108
"THREE VILLANOUS-LOOKING BODIES, AND A FOURTH, WHICH DAWSON
RECOGNIZED AS HIS OWN" 126
"HE'S THE WORST BABY YOU EVER SAW" 148
"IT WAS A WEARY VIGIL, BUT HE WAS TRUE" 150
"'MY CASTLE'S BURNING, EH? HA-HA!'" 162
"RUPERT WAS ALWAYS MERRY" 166
"SIEGFRIED VON PEPPERPOTZ GREW ILL OF IT" 170
"THE THREE FIDDLED WITH ALL THEIR STRENGTH" 188
"'YOU ARE A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN'" 200
"THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON" 202
"IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM" 204

"Over the Plum-Pudding"

WHY IT WAS NEVER PUBLISHED. AN AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT BY ITS EDITOR.

_On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers, sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for Mr. Wilkinson's statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye._

_J. K. B._

"Over the Plum-Pudding"