PREFACE.
Reading edition
I was invited the other day to take down, as Stenographer, what purported to be a discussion upon some general political topics, and more especially on the forthcoming presidential election. One of the disputants entrenched himself in what, I believe, scholars call the Socratic method, that is, he pumped his supposed antagonist dry. Whether the world at large may think the dialogue as funny as I did myself, I can form no opinion. It is to solve this question that I give it to the public.
BLYTHE HARDING.
New York, August 31st, 1880.