Though its author was in fact John Hay, Bret Harte was often given credit for the popular poem, "Little Breeches."

One day an admirer approached Harte under this very misapprehension. "My dear Mr. Harte," she raved, "I am so delighted to meet you. I want to tell you how much I loved reading 'Little Breeches.'"

"Thank you, madam," Harte replied, "but I have to tell you that you have put the little breeches on the wrong man!"

["Harte, in a mild and colorless way, was that kind of man," Mark Twain once declared. "That is to say he was a man without a country; no, not a man -- man is to strong a term; he was an invertebrate without a country."]