although i have had several opportunities to see a bull-fight, i have never seen one; but i needed a bull-fight in this book, and a trustworthy one will be found in it. i got it out of john hay’s castilian days, reducing and condensing it to fit the requirements of this small story. mr. hay and i were friends from early times, and if he were still with us he would not rebuke me for the liberty i have taken.

the knowledge of military minutiæ exhibited in this book will be found to be correct, but it is not mine; i took it from army regulations, ed. 1904; hardy’s tactics—cavalry, revised ed., 1861; and jomini’s handbook of military etiquette, west point ed., 1905.

it would not be honest in me to encourage by silence the inference that i composed the horse’s private bugle-call, for i did not. i lifted it, as aristotle says. it is the opening strain in the pizzicato in sylvia, by delibes. when that master was composing it he did not know it was a bugle-call, it was i that found it out.

along through the book i have distributed a few anachronisms and unborn historical incidents and such things, so as to help the tale over the difficult places. this idea is not original with me; i got it out of herodotus. herodotus says, “very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.”

the cats in the chair do not belong to me, but to another.

these are all the exceptions. what is left of the book is mine.

mark twain.

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