in a pamphlet. I did so, and called it "Three Thousand
Miles in a Railroad Car." They offered to pay me a very good sum for my
trouble in so doing. I declined it, because I felt that I had been amply
paid by the pleasure which I had derived from the journey. But I
received grateful recognition subsequently in another form. The pamphlet
was most singular of its kind. It was a full report of all the
statistics and vast advantages of the Kansas Pacific Road. It contained
very valuable facts and figures; and it was all served up with jokes,
songs, buffalo-hunting, Indians, and Brigham. It was a marvellous
farrago, and it "took." It was sent to every member of Congress and
"every other man."

Before it appeared, a friend of mine named Ringwalt, who was both a
literary man and owner of a printing-office, offered me $200 if I would
secure him the printing of it. I said that I would not take the money,
but that I would get him the printing, which I easily did; but being a
very honourable man, he was led to discharge the obligation. One day he
said to me, "Why don't you publish your 'Breitmann Ballads?' Everybody
is quoting them now." I replied, "There is not a publisher in America
who would accept them." And I was quite right, for there was not. He
answered, "I will print them for you." I accepted the offer, but when
they were set up an idea occurred to me by which I could save my friend
his expenses. I went to a publisher named T. B. Peterson, who said
effectively this--"The book will not sell more than a thousand copies.
There will be about a thousand people who will buy it, even for fifty
cents, so I shall charge that, though it would be, as books go, only as a
twenty-five cent work." He took it and paid my friend for the
composition. I was not to receive any money or share in the profits till
all the expenses had been paid.

Mr. Peterson immediately sold 2,000--4,000--I know not how many
thousands--at fifty cents a copy. It was republished in Canada and
Australia, to my loss. An American publisher who owned a magazine asked
me, through his editor, to write for it a long Breitmann poem. I did so,
making, however, an explicit verbal arrangement _that it should not be
republished as a book_. It was, however, immediately republished as
such, with a title to the effect that it was the "Breitmann Ballads." I
appealed to the editor, and it was withdrawn, but I know not how many
were issued, to my loss.