Yesterday morning, at a very early hour, I was awakened by an imperative summons from one of the trusty sleuths that patrol the river-front in the interest of the paper on which I am employed and informed that a band of celebrated literary men had just been landed from a tramp steamer at a Hoboken pier.

The reticence of actors, singers, authors, practical evangelists, and female temperance agitators concerning their movements renders it necessary for a great daily paper to maintain a corps of reliable spies, whose duty it is to meet[Pg 308] every incoming steamer and see that neither Henry Irving nor Steve Brodie nor Lady Henry Somerset lands unobserved and unchronicled on our hospitable shores.

The human ferret who aroused me from my slumbers declared that the newly arrived authors were met at the pier by an active, enthusiastic little man, who instantly departed with them in the direction of the setting sun.

“And what makes you think that they were literary men?” I inquired. “Are they entered on the ship’s papers as able-bodied authors?”

“Naw,” rejoined the sleuth. “They’re beatin’ the contract labor law. I knew they was authors the minute I seen the little man that met them at the dock. He’s a regular author’s padrone. He’s got a hull town full of ’em back in Jersey some place. I’ve known him this five year or more.”

[Pg 309]I waited to hear no more, for I knew that the active little man could be none other than McClure; and so I started without a moment’s delay for the village of Syndicate on the banks of the fragrant Hackensack.

On my way to the station for the authors’ settlement I met a small boy hurrying along the dusty highway. I recognized him as the son of an author who is now acting as timekeeper of the Grant memoir gang, and stopped him to inquire about Mr. McClure.

“That’s him a-coming there now, I think,” replied the urchin.

I looked in the direction indicated, and saw what seemed to be a drove of cattle slowly approaching and enveloped in a cloud of dust. I sauntered along to meet them, and in a quarter of an hour at a sharp turn in the road, I encountered the strangest literary gathering that it has ever been my fortune to[Pg 310] behold; and when I say this I do not forget that I have frequented some of the most brilliant literary and artistic salons that New York has ever known. At the head of the cavalcade marched Mr. S. S. McClure, the noted philanthropist, magazine editor, and founder of the model village of Syndicate. He carried a pair of bagpipes under his arm, and presented such a jaded and travel-stained appearance that I was involuntarily reminded of the Wandering Jew. Behind him marched a band of strange-looking men, attired in kilts and wearing broad whiskers, long bristly hair, and bare knees. A collie dog, panting and dust-covered, but still sharp-eyed and vigilant, trotted along beside them to prevent them from straying away and losing themselves in the New Jersey prairies.

As soon as Mr. McClure’s eyes fell upon me a bright smile lit up his face,[Pg 311] and he stopped short in the road, raised the pipe to his lips, and burst into a triumphant strain of Scotch music. Those that followed him paused in their course, and with one accord began a masterly saltatorial effort, which, I have since learned, enjoys great vogue in Glasgow and Dundee under the name of the “Sawbath Fling.” While they danced the collie squatted on his hindquarters and watched them with bright, sleepless eyes.

“McClure,” I cried, “in the name o............