[_Saranac_, _October_ 1887.]
SIR,—I have to trouble you with the following _paroles bien senties_. We
are here at a first-rate place. ‘Baker’s’ is the name of our house, but
we don’t address there; we prefer the tender care of the Post-Office, as
more aristocratic (it is no use to telegraph even to the care of the
Post-Office who does not give a single damn {70}). Baker’s has a
prophet’s chamber, which the hypercritical might describe as a garret
with a hole in the floor: in that garret, sir, I have to trouble you and
your wife to come and slumber. Not now, however: with manly hospitality,
I choke off any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife and my mother are
gone (a note for the latter, strongly suspected to be in the hand of your
talented wife, now sits silent on the mantel shelf), one to Niagara and
t’other to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not yet installed. And
because third, I won’t have you till I have a buffalo robe and leggings,
lest you should want to paint me as a plain man, which I am not, but a
rank Saranacker and wild man of the woods.—Yours,