re in the office, and I fear I am seriously
compromised. Cowen has been threatening to denounce me to you, but I
have no fear that he will be able to grant you any time from his
numerous [_a_] hoydens, doxies, and beldames. He threatened me
for the mountenance of an hour this afternoon, but I bade him write
and it pleased him--passing well knew I that he could not missay me
with you.

I am delighted with the result of the game at Detroit to-day--7 to 3
in favor of Chicago! This, I think, insures us the championship.

Miller, our circulator, is very much disturbed because our country
circulation has dropped about 1,000 in less than a fortnight; he has
been hobnobbing with Ballantyne about it to-day. Mr. Stone is still
in Kansas City hunting wild geese.

"Pepita" is billed as the joint production of Thompson and Solomon,
and about twenty people have asked me if you were the Thompson
referred to and I have indignantly repudiated the libel, for, maugre
my head, "Pepita" is just a little the rottenest thing I ever saw or
heard.

I have not clapped my eyes on any of [_b_] your suburban
friends since you departed. At McVicker's the other evening I found
myself being scrutinized by a buxom country lass who looked as if
she might be the fair unknown from Evanston. Her rueful visage and
the sympathetic glance she bestowed on me seemed to assure me that
she, too, was pining for the grandest of old grands.

My wife has been away for a week, but not a line have I had from
her. It has comforted me a good deal, however, to hear John say that
she looked just about sixteen years of age at the wedding.

I took the Dock out to supper to-night and heaped coals of fire upon
his head. I let him have everything he wanted and I paid the bill
with a flourish that would have reflected credit upon a Roman
conqueror.

I wish you were going to be here day after to-morrow [_c_] to
go with us to the last base-ball game of the season--a postponed
game between the Chicagos and the St. Louis Club. I am to have a
private box on account of being a mascot.

The Dock has just informed me that he has just rung into one of his
editorials the expression "seismic phenomena," and he seems to be as
tickled as Jack Homer was when he pulled an alleged plum out of that
historic pie.

I don't know what you think about it, but this business of writing
with five different colors