n he waxes sentimental,
and his love notes are the most reeking examples of puppy love and
high tragedy ever confiscated by an outraged teacher. When written
in the vernacular they are not infrequently obscene, for one of the
saddest phases of early sentiment here is that it is never innocent;
but in English they run to pathos. One ludicrous phase of love-making
is the amount of third-person intervention--an outsider thrusting
himself into the matter to plead for his lovelorn chum. For some
years I made a collection of confiscated _billet-doux_, but they were
destroyed in one of the frequent fires which visit Manila. I can,
however, produce a fair imitation of one of these kindly first aids
to the wounded. This is the prevailing style:

Miss----,

_Lovely and Most Respectable Lady_:

I am do me the honor to write to you these few unworthy lines to tell
you why you are breaking the heart and destroying a good health of
my friend Pedro. Always I am going to his house every night, and I am
find him weeping for you. He is not eating for love of you. He cannot
sleep because he is think about your eyes which are like the stars,
and your hairs which are the most beautiful of all the girls in this
town. Alas! my friend must die if you do not give him a hope. Every
day he is walking in front of your house, but you do not give to him
one little word of love. Even you do not love him, you can stop his
weep if you like to send him one letter, telling to him that you are
not angry to him or to me, his friend.

I have been informed by several persons that there is an official
etiquette about this sort of correspondence. When a boy decides that
he has fallen in love with a schoolmate or with any other young girl,
no matter whether he knows her or not, he writes her a letter in the
first person similar to the above. If she ignores the letter utterly,
he understands that he does not please her--in brief, that "No Irish
need apply." But if she answers in a highly moral strain, professing
to be deeply shocked at his presumption, and informing him that she
sees no way to continue the acquaintance, he knows that all is well. He
sends her another letter, breathing undying love, and takes steps to be
introduced at her home. Once having obtained a calling acquaintance,
he calls at intervals, accompanied by seven or eight other young men,
and, in the general hilarity of a large gathering, endeavors to snatch
a moment in which to gaze i