This is the first published collection of Everett True, reprinted in the 1980s. Until the 21st Century, it would be the only collection of Everett available. In 2005, we bought and scanned it as the first collection of comics on the Barnacle Press site.

The original introduction:

Just a Minute --

We're all of us mollycoddles--more or less.

We have a valuable hour which somebody wearies away in recitals of his troubles with his furnace. We look pleasant when a neighbor hurls at us the "bright sayings" of his little Willie. We graciously permit a man to give the hot air treatment to some question of politics--and dinner growing colder every minute. We tolerate the nuisance and the boor, even smiling, at times, instead of resenting intrusions and impertinences.

And all for the sake of peace.

Everett True lacks our weakness in treatment of the human pest. He is a living protest against the incarnate irritants that are with us always. He is not a reformer, but rather an executioner, inflicting punishment where he comes in contact with fit subjects of penal treatment.

Mr. True's victims call him a "grouch". In reality he is a humanitarian.