and tumultuously cheered. At last I found an inspector of police on
horseback, who agreed to get me to the stand if it took a leg. He
accordingly charged about 300 women and clubbed eight men--I counted
them--and finally got me in. He was very drunk but he was very good to
me.
Once back from Chicago Richard divided his time between his desk at
Franklin Square, his rooms on Twenty-eighth Street, and in quickly
picking up the friendships and the social activities his trip to
England had temporarily broken off. Much as he now loved London, he
was still an enthusiastic New Yorker, and the amount of work and play
he accomplished was quite extraordinary. Indeed it is difficult to
understand where he found the time to do so much. In addition to his
work on Harper's he wrote many short stories and special articles, not
only because he loved the mere writing of them, but because he had come
to so greatly enjoy the things he could buy with the money his labors
now brought him. His pleasures had increased as steadily as the prices
he could now command for his stories, and in looking back on those days
it is rather remarkable when one considers his age, the temptations
that surrounded him, and his extraordinary capacity for enjoyment, that
he never seems to have forgotten the balance between work and play, and
stuck to both with an unswerving and unceasing enthusiasm. However,
after four months of New York, he decided it was high time for him to
be off again, and he arranged with the Harpers to spend the late winter
and the spring in collecting material for the two sets of articles
which afterward appeared in book form under the titles of "The Rulers
of the Mediterranean" and "About Paris." He set sail for Gibraltar the
early part of February, 1893, and the following letters describe his
leisurely progress about the Mediterranean ports.
NEW YORK, February 3, 1893.
DEAREST MOTHER:
This is a little present for you and a goodby. Your packing-case is
what I need and what I shall want, and I love it because you made it.
But as YOU say, we understand and do not have to write love letters;
you have given me all that is worth while in me, and I love you so that
I look forward already over miles and miles and days and months, and
just see us sitting together at Marion and telling each other how good
it is to be together again and holding each other's hands. I don't
believe you really know how HAPPY I am in loving y
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