Your note astonishes me. The man you describe is a notorious thief. Get
the compositors all together, and make a rush at him. Don't try to keep
him, but hustle him out of town, and I'll be down as soon as I can get a
button sewn on my collar.
P.S.--Give it him good!--don't mention my address and he can't complain
to me how you treat him. Bust his bugle!
_J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin, Editor._
"STINGER" OFFICE, Friday, 2 P.M.
Business has detained me from the office until now, and what do I find?
Not a soul about the place, no copy, not a stickful of live matter on
the galleys! There can be no paper this week. What you have all done
with yourselves I am sure I don't know; one would suppose there had been
smallpox about the place. You will please come down and explain this
Hegira at once--at once, if you please!
P.S.--That troublesome Muskler--you may remember he dropped in on Monday
to inquire about something or other--has taken a sort of shop exactly
opposite here, and seems, at this distance, to be doing something to a
shotgun. I presume he is a gunsmith. So we are precious well rid of
_him_.
_Peter Pitchin, Editor to J. Munniglut, Proprietor_.
PIER NO. 3, Friday Evening.
Just a line or two to say I am suddenly called away to bury my sick
mother. When that is off my mind I'll write you what I know about the
Hegira, the Flight into Egypt, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and
whatever else you would like to learn. There is nothing mean about _me!_
I don't think there has been any wilful desertion. You may engage an
editor for, say, fifty years, with the privilege of keeping him
regularly, if, at the end of that time, I should break my neck hastening
back.
P.S.--I hope that poor fellow Muskier will make a fair profit in the
gunsmithing line. Jump him for an ad!