Burnett A. Ward

Foreward. {To "Verey Lights"}:--

This little volume comprises a series of poems, grave and gay, long and short, from the pen of the famous Commonwealth columnist, "Flare Pistol Pete" and bear, appropriately enough, the title "Verey Lights."
I well remember when the first of Pete's poems, "The Saga of Serjeant Scott" -- included in this volume -- first reached The Commonwealth Office. My colleague in editorial crime became subject immediately to a series of ecstatic shudders and romped around the sanctum with the same gay abandon displayed by old Archimedes when he made his startling discovery in the bathtub. The poem was good, but I was not impressed to the same extent as my colleague. However, my eye caught a covering letter which as I read it, indicated to me a stroke of genius. The poem was published by my consent -- on account of the letter; the letter, which never saw the light of day, among other things revealed the fact that this budding poet had used up all his available note-paper in writing the first seven stanzas; the next four had to be typed on the butt ends of brown paper bags and the last two painfully and laborously inscribed on the offside of the writer's wooden leg. I was all in favor of publishing the letter and dropping the poem into the W.P.B. but was over-ruled.
From that time forward "Flare Pistol Pete" has been a feature in the columns of The Commonwealth and I know full well that this little volume will bring many moments of real pleasure, not only to the devotees of Parnassus, but to those of us who readily admit that we belong in the ranks of the lowbrow.
"Verey Lights" Bon Voyage!
~W. A. Pritchard.