sentiments on his
style of intangible thought wave.

I will meet you at Havre or Calais, and agree with you how hard we shall
hit each other. I saw, at a low variety show the other day, two
pleasing comedians who welted each other over the stomach with canes,
and also pounded each other on the head with sufficient force to explode
percussion caps on the top of the skull, and yet without injury. Do you
not think that a prize-fight could be thus provided for? I will see
these men, if you say so, and learn their methods.

Remember, it is not the punishment of a prize-fight for which I yearn,
but the effulgent glory of meeting you in the ring, and having the
cables and the press associate my budding name with that of a man who
has done so much to make men better--a man whose name will go down to
posterity as that of one who sought to ameliorate and mellow and
desiccate his fellow-men.

I will now challenge you once more, with great respect, and beg leave to
remain, yours very truly,

BILL NYE.

_Hon. Ferdinand de Lesseps, Paris, France:_

DEAR SIR--I have some shares in the canal which you have been working
on, and I am compelled to hypothecate them this summer, in order to
paint my house. You have great faith in the future of the enterprise,
and so I will give you the first chance on this stock of mine. You have
suffered so much in order to do this work that I want to see the stock
get into your hands. You deserve it. You shall have it. Ferdie, if you
will send me a post-office money order by return mail, covering the par
value of five hundred shares, I will lose the premium, because I am a
little pressed for money. The painters will be through next week, and
will want their pay.

As I say, I want to see you own the canal, for in fancy I can see you as
you toiled down there in the hot sun, floating your wheelbarrow and your
bonds down the valley with your perspiration. I can see you in the
morning, with hot, red hands and a tin dinner pail, going to your toil,
a large red cotton handkerchief sticking out of your hip pocket.

So I have decided that you ought to have control, if possible, of this
great water front; besides, you have a larger family than I have to
support. When I heard that you were the father of fifteen little
children, and that you were in the sere and yellow leaf, I said to
myself, a man with that many little mouths to feed, at the ag