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INTRODUCTION
Dan Coombs and Charley Stevens, all very famous singers
and blackface comedians. The show prospered, but when
winter came Professor Thomas suddenly abandoned the
enterprise and sailed for Central America. The reason for
his departure remained a mystery until a miner, another
bewhiskered giant, boasted that he had asked Professor
Thomas to prepare a certain beverage,and that the Professor
was obliged to hang his head and admit that he had never
heard of it. The bewhiskered giant explained that the drink
was peculiar to Central America.
Within a few months Professor Thomas had stocked his
mental reservoir with the wisdom of the Central Americans,
and then took ship to New York. There he learned that the
Yale boys were again strutting boastfully about New Haven
with no bartender to guide them. He immediately answered
the call of duty and hastened to his home town, where he
opened a barroom, introduced the Blue Blazer, and soon
put the Yale lads in their proper places. His task completed.
Professor Thomas disposed of his New Haven holdings,and
journeyed to South Carolina to study the julep in its native
haunt. When he had added this famous concoction to his
repertoire he went to Chicago, and for several months eked
out a lonely existence in that outpost of civilization, which
had not then been subjected to the refining influences of
machine guns and Big Bill Thompson. But he was not long
able to endure the crudities of the lake settlement, and he
soon dropped down to St. Louis, where he became Principal
Bartender of the Planters' House, one of the most famous
hotels in America. It was especially noted for its fried
chicken and waffles, and for catfish and candied sweet pota
toes. It was while he was presiding over the Planters'
House bar, in the early 'fifties, that Professor Thomas
reached the apex of his career by inventing the beverage
which has thundered down the years as the Tom and Jerry,
A few historians have expressed the opinion that the Tom
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