no good. It is acted out by
different people who claim they are Chinamen, I reckon. They teeter
around on the stage and sing in the English language, but their clothes
are peculiar. A homely man, who played that he was the lord high
executioner and chairman of the vigilance committee, wore a pair of
wide, bandana pants, which came off during the first act. He was cool
and collected, though, and so caught them before it was everlastingly
too late. He held them on by one hand while he sang the rest of his
piece, and when he left the stage the audience heartlessly whooped for
him to come back.

"'The Mikado' is not funny or instructive as a general thing, but last
night it was accidently facetious. It has too much singing and not
enough vocal music about it. There is also an overplus of conversation
through the thing that seems like talking at a mark for $2 a week. It
may be owing to my simple ways, but 'The Mikado' is too rich for my
blood.

"We live well here at the Fifth Avenue. The man that owns the place puts
two silver forks and a clean tablecloth on my table every day, and the
young fellows that pass the grub around are so well dressed that it
seems sassy and presumptions for me to bother them by asking them to
bring me stuff when I'd just as soon go and get it myself and nothing
else in the world to do.

"I told the waiter at my table yesterday that when he got time I wished
he would come up to my room and we could have a game of old sledge. He
is a nice young man, and puts himself out a good deal to make me
comfortable.

"I found something yesterday at the table that bothered me. It was a new
kind of a silver dingus, with two handles to it, for getting a lump of
sugar into your tea. I saw right away that it was for that, but when I
took the two handles in my hand like a nut cracker and tried to scoop up
a lump of sugar with it I felt embarrassed. Several people who were
total strangers to me smiled.

"After dinner the waiter brought me a little pink-glass bowl of lemonade
and a clean wipe to dry my mouth with, I reckon, after I drank the
lemonade. I do not pine for lemonade much, anyhow, but this was
specially poor. It was just plain water, with a lemon rind and no sugar
into it.

"One rural rooster from Pittsburg showed his contempt for the blamed
stuff by washing his hands in it. I may be rough and uncouth in my
style, but I hope I will never lower myself like that in company."

[Illustration: TH