Preface

The interest of many people has been awakened in regard to my work. How did I ever happen to think of it? How did I start to take hold of it? Why did I choose such a life? And similar questions have been asked me hundreds of times. This little book is intended as an answer to all.

For fifteen years I have led a drummer’s life, have come into contact with all manner of mankind, high and low, rich and poor, patricians and plebeians, knights and cowards, and it must be an opaque nature that could not, in turn, learn a lesson from each, as they came along.

Every conversation, every incident narrated is an actual FACT, given exactly as it occurred. In no sense of the word is it an advertisement, but an account of my work, concentrated into its title--The Chivalry of Man, as exemplified in the life of Mrs. Joe Person.

Dedicated to my beloved children, for whom I have “lived and learned.”