Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/148

 who stole his pocketbook during the Republican State Convention at Columbus, because it had in it that very poem.

However, his intimation that Mr. Dungan had stolen the poem as well as the pocket-book was vitiated by the fact that the latter was able to prove that he never attended Republican conventions, being himself a staunch Democrat, as befitted the resident of a town named after the the greatest democrat of them all! So his laurels seemed secure.

But when, in 1911, the Ohio State Journal published the poem, at the request of a correspondent, with Mr. Dungan’s name attached as usual, some sharp on the staff of the Gallipolis Tribune dug up the poem in Stedman & Hutchinson’s compilation and found it attributed to Miss Smith, together with the date of its first appearance in the Christian Union in 1873. The Tribune thereupon animadverted editorially upon literary thieves and credulous editors, and challenged the State Journal to prove that Mr. Dungan was really what he claimed to be.

The Journal, of course, accepted the challenge and a few days later published the following statement: We showed the Tribune article to Mr. Dungan, who, after laughing heartily over it, said: “Why, I