r 22d, 1886.

A second letter came from you to-day, dear boy, and I am glad to
hear that you are enjoying yourself, although I made mone passing
measure when I learned that the caitiff Brunswick knight had
forejusted you at tennis. I don't know why the revered Miss Mollie
Tillie deems me a capricious man and a fickle; nor can I imagine.
You should not suffer her to missay me so grievously. Where could
the skeptical damosell have found a person more faithful than I have
been in writing each day to her big brother? But if Miss Mollie
throws me overboard, so to speak, I shall look to her bustling
sister, Miss Nellie, for less capricious friendship. "_Varium et
mutabile semper foemina._"

Poor old Dock! He comes into the room and leaves his key sticking in
the door; to complicate matters still further, he leaves another key
sticking in the book-case. When I reproach him with these evidences
of a failing mind, he smiles and cries. I wish he were here that I
might read these lines to him. Then there is Cowen--but I will not
fill this letter with incoherent criminations. The enclosed sketch
will explain all.

It represents a scene in this office. I have stepped out to post a
letter to you. Coming back I peep in at the window and behold baby
Dock in his high-chair weeping lustily, whilst baby Cowen has crept
out of his chair, toddled to the wall and is reaching for his
_bottle_! Betwixt the hysterics of the one babe and the bottle
of t'other I am well-nigh exhausted. Come back and take care of your
babies yourself!

[Illustration: A SCENE IN THE DAILY NEWS OFFICE.
_From a drawing by Eugene Field._]

I do not see that any effort is being made to get out a better
paper. The sheet has been simply rotten, and everybody says so--even
the dogs are barking about it. Meanwhile I am sawing wood. I am
reading a great deal. Read Mrs. Gordon's Life of Christopher North,
parts of Burns's poems, life of Dr. Faustus, and Morte D'Arthur
since you left, and hope to read Goethe's poems, Life of Bunyan,
Homer's works, Sartor Resartus and Rasselas before you get back. I
have about made up my mind to do little outside writing for four or
five months and to do a prodigious amount of reading instead.

My wife will be back to-morrow evening; as I am to meet her at the
station, I may not have time to write you your daily note. She
writes me that she has had a bad cold eve