s and awaiting developments.

I often wonder what I'll do with my decree when I get it--I can't wear
it on my finger, and it certainly isn't the thing for gold leaf and a
shadow box--Oh! I shan't waste time placing it; perhaps Carlton will
find a pigeon-hole for it somewhere.

I haven't written to Bern in days, but I don't care; I never considered
a banker as one of the human race, anyway. Poor Bern; he's thrown out
like a bill in Parliament! Beaten by a blackball called Carlton--I'd
hate to see him now. Roland the Furious is charming in a poem, but in a
drawing room, prosaic and expensive.

Carlton and I went to church Sunday and were refused communion--the dear
good Bishop has but one eye, so he sees things half way. I said: "If
this is God's table, I want communion, if it's the Episcopal, I don't."
In his sermon he called divorcees "social lepers, social filthiness,"
and said: "After the new law goes into effect, we'll have no more
dumping here." He's an old pop-gun that shoots spit-balls, so the wounds
he makes are not fatal. Carlton refuses to go to church here or anywhere
else again, and will once more trudge along his Sunday field of Bacchus
cultivated by Venus.

By the way, after June 1st, all divorcees will be required to stay one
year, then they won't come at all. Oklahoma had a hunch and changed her
law back to three months. Now the colony will transplant itself, then
watch the death agony of Sioux Falls. She's foolish--foolish! The
Easterners have made this burg what it is. Take away our influence and
she'll sink into nothingness again. Some of us are bad, but all of us
are not; however, the Sioux Falls gossips make no distinction. They lift
their $2.98 skirts when they pass us, for fear of inoculation by the
_bacillus_ divorce. I often wonder if they realize that the prejudice is
returned with compound interest.

When any new gossip is born, they fly around the streets like the beads
of a rosary when the string is snapped. Perhaps you haven't noticed how
serious this letter is. I'm frowning as I write--a habit most bad on the
eyebrows--surest of signs that I am sinking again into the quagmire of
love.

I have felt my pulse so often and know all the symptoms--which I more
than enjoy scrutinizing--not even the finest emotion escapes me. I
believe that I play the game well for I am still unjaded, which is
unusual with so much over-feeding.

Is your new fur coat unborn lamb, or did it happen? Speaking o