[Illustration: Light Puffs raised a Little Swell.]
MR. PUNCH, SIR,--I would like to ask you, slick out, if you reckon it
was all fair and square with that there _Thistle's_ keel. For to hear
that interested parties in that race had gone down in a diving-bell
the evening before and screwed themselves on to that yacht would not
have surprised me. And, let me tell you had they done so, they would
have considerably impeded her progress the following day. That Captain
BARR was cute enough when he said, "he couldn't make out what had come
to his ship." Take my word what had come to it was just that
diving-bell, and I shouldn't mind calculating that the owner of the
_Volunteer_ was boss of the interested parties fixed up inside of it.
You ask "can such things take place in the States?" Wal--I guess they
just can. Muchly so, when there's money on it. As to the diving-bell
advantage, I speak feelingly, as I have assisted over a twenty-mile
course in one myself. We were on that occasion found out at the
finish. But it was all straight. The umpire, whom we had previously
squared, and who was above reproach, gave it in our favour. It's
knowing these things, coupled with the fact that I backed the
_Thistle_ for two hundred dollars, that makes me just throw out these
friendly hints to you, Sir, from,