n be no paper this week. What you have all done
with yourselves I am sure I don't know; one would suppose there had been
smallpox about the place. You will please come down and explain this
Hegira at once--at once, if you please!

P.S.--That troublesome Muskler--you may remember he dropped in on Monday
to inquire about something or other--has taken a sort of shop exactly
opposite here, and seems, at this distance, to be doing something to a
shotgun. I presume he is a gunsmith. So we are precious well rid of
_him_.

_Peter Pitchin, Editor to J. Munniglut, Proprietor_.

PIER NO. 3, Friday Evening.

Just a line or two to say I am suddenly called away to bury my sick
mother. When that is off my mind I'll write you what I know about the
Hegira, the Flight into Egypt, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and
whatever else you would like to learn. There is nothing mean about _me!_
I don't think there has been any wilful desertion. You may engage an
editor for, say, fifty years, with the privilege of keeping him
regularly, if, at the end of that time, I should break my neck hastening
back.

P.S.--I hope that poor fellow Muskier will make a fair profit in the
gunsmithing line. Jump him for an ad!

CORRUPTING THE PRESS

When Joel Bird was up for Governor of Missouri, Sam Henly was editing
the Berrywood _Bugle_; and no sooner was the nomination made by the
State Convention than he came out hot against the party. He was an able
writer, was Sam, and the lies he invented about our candidate were
shocking! That, however, we endured very well, but presently Sam turned
squarely about and began telling the truth. _This_ was a little too
much; the County Committee held a hasty meeting, and decided that it
must be stopped; so I, Henry Barber, was sent for to make arrangements
to that end. I knew something of Sam: had purchased him several times,
and I estimated his present value at about one thousand dollars. This
seemed to the committee a reasonable figure, and on my mentioning it to
Sam he said "he thought that about the fair thing; it should never be
said that the _Bugle_ was a hard paper to deal with." There was,
however, some delay in raising the money; the candidates for the local
offices had not disposed of their autumn hogs yet, and were in financial
straits. Some of them contributed a pig each, one gave twenty bushels of
corn, another a flock of chickens; and the man who aspired to the
distinction of County Judge pa