Our books column’s subject this time barely qualifies as a book. It’s a 6-inch-by-3-inch, 16-page assemblage of “advice and good cheer” titled “A Trotty Veck Message: Be Friendly,” published by “Trotty Veck Messengers, Saranac Lake, N.Y.” It’s not dated, but extensive material kindly, and quickly, provided by Historic Saranac Lake suggests 1919 or 1920.

Before we go any further, a grateful salute to that organization’s Executive Director Amy Catania, who provided the background information that follows.

This curious little production is brimming with wisdom, jokes and the aforementioned “advice and good cheer,” a phrase that comes from its own promotional text. Its cover is graced by a sketch of Trotty himself in top hat and rumpled Columbo-like coat, cane in hand (more about the fellow in a moment) and the aphorism “The only way to have a friend is to be one,” attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Inside is more in that vein. Below is a sample:

¯ A toast timely for today: “Friendship — may differences of opinion only cement it,” uncredited.

¯ A variety of “friendly” poems by the likes of James Whitcomb Riley, Edgar Guest and Alexander Pope, who wrote, “Teach me to feel another’s woe; / To hide the fault I see; / That mercy I to others show, / That mercy show to me.”

¯ Sayings, such as “A man’s true wealth is the good he does in the world,” also unattributed.

¯ Bible passages: “A faithful friend is a strong defence, and he that hath found him hath found a treasure,” from Ecclesiastes.

¯ And of course Benjamin Franklin: “Do good to thy friend to keep him, (and) to thy enemy to gain him.”

“Be Friendly” was one of 56 Trotty Veck Messages, published between 1916 and 1965, bearing such titles as “Courage,” “Be Strong,” “Keep Smiling,” “A Merry Heart,” “Chuckles” and “Cheery Ideas.” They were the brainchild of Trudeau.

Sanitarium roommates Seymour Eaton Jr. and Charles S. “Beanie” Barnet, who began compiling the content when they themselves needed a lift — and income. Eaton succumbed to the horrific disease in 1918, but Barnet carried on for 47 more years. The hearty consumption survivor lived on in Saranac Lake to age 90, dying in 1977.

The series sold four million copies, according to a 1966 Adirondack Daily Enterprise report. Sources ranged from Shakespeare, Socrates and Goethe to an anonymous Adirondack guide who observed that he did not mind long church sermons because they did not wake him up. The Messengers’ audience was invalids, shut-ins, disabled war veterans and the discouraged. Barnet received letters of gratitude from inmates at Clinton Prison in Dannemora and San Quentin in California.

And who was Trotty Veck? Read Charles Dickens’s short story “The Chimes,” wherein this partially crippled character “trotted” throughout his fictional vicinity raising people’s spirits. Trotty operated from cranny in a church, inspired by the church’s bells — “his dearest friends,” says the Preface to “Be Friendly.” That Preface, doubtless written by the perpetually good-natured Barnet, ends, “Trotty was an optimist, a messenger of cheer. You and I can be messengers of cheer; we can be Trotty Vecks.”

Amen to that.

For more on the Trotty Veck pamphlets, visit localwiki.org/hsl/Trotty_Veck_Messengers.