e that he eats out of her hand, and so
well trained that he don't allow strangers to pet him.

I inherited one Jack--I couldn't help that. But I don't propose to wake
up and find another one in the family. So you write me what's what by
return.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN GRAHAM.

+-----------------------------+
| No. 20 |
+-----------------------------+
| From John Graham, at the |
| Boston House of Graham & |
| Co., to his son, |
| Pierrepont, at the Union |
| Stock Yards in Chicago. |
| Mr. Pierrepont has told |
| the old man "what's what" |
| and received a limited |
| blessing. |
+-----------------------------+

XX

BOSTON, November 11, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ If that's what, it's all right. And you can't get
married too quick to suit the old man. I believe in short engagements
and long marriages. I don't see any sense in a fellow's sitting around
on the mourner's bench with the sinners, after he's really got religion.
The time to size up the other side's strength is before the engagement.

Some fellows propose to a girl before they know whether her front and
her back hair match, and then holler that they're stuck when they find
that she's got a cork leg and a glass eye as well. I haven't any
sympathy with them. They start out on the principle that married people
have only one meal a day, and that of fried oysters and tutti-frutti
ice-cream after the theatre. Naturally, a girl's got her better nature
and her best complexion along under those circumstances; but the really
valuable thing to know is how she approaches ham and eggs at seven A.M.,
and whether she brings her complexion with her to the breakfast table.
And these fellows make a girl believe that they're going to spend all
the time between eight and eleven P.M., for the rest of their lives,
holding a hundred and forty pounds, live weight, in their lap, and
saying that it feels like a feather. The thing to find out is whether,
when one of them gets up to holding a ten po