Kreigh Collins’ “Christmas Story” initially impressed newspaper editors during its sales phase, and once it was published it impressed the general public. The fourth instalment is another wonderful piece of storytelling, and this time, Stub and Dick Dixon appear more often than in the previous three episodes.

As was the case during his career as a cartoonist, Kreigh Collins received plenty of mail from readers — positive, negative, and punctilious. One piece of feedback he received caught his attention. In this case, the letter was forwarded to Kreigh from the Chicago Tribune’s office. A reader from Minneapolis offered cautious praise for the first instalment, but took issue with a detail in Collins’ illustration — the saddle of the courier in the first comic’s panel (shown below).

The reader noted that “according to reliable historians saddles had not been invented until six centuries later.” No doubt Collins bristled, given the countless hours he spent on research, and the fact that he was desperate to impress the executives at the Trib, as he pushed for them to pick up “Mitzi McCoy,” and continue running his work. Kreigh’s response was a classic. He praised the reader while not admitting a mistake, and in a cc to the Trib’s managing editor, tosses off a hillarious encapsulation of himself.

It’s typical of his wit, and is an expression that I look forward to repeating one day.

For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, please visit his page on Facebook.