to you
all the time. I am not a real lord at all. My father was gardener at
Clarenden Castle an' I was under groom at St. James Court. When the
younger son came to this country, I came with him but left him an'
became a waiter in New York City. I went to an excursion to Long Branch
an' got to flirting with a widow just for pastime. She dogged my life
after that and my wife is something terrible so I took her and came to
Los Angeles. We was as happy as any one could be with a wife like mine
until the widow showed up. Then I stood between two fires and either
one of them was hell so I got into the balloon and cut the rope
expecting to drift over into Mexico. You are all rich and will not need
the money but I always play fair and I hate to skin out this way;

"yours truly
"L. A. C.

"P.S. It was all I could do to keep from helping with the work 'cause
some of your cooking was rotten and you did not wash the dishes clean
but I knew if I worked you would not think me a real lord. I hope some
day I may be able to repay you for all your kindness."

I didn't say a word after I finished readin' the letter. I had fallen
too far to have any breath left for talkin'; but Hammy an' Locals
unbosomed their hearts something terrible.

"A murrian on the filthy swine!" sez Hammy, after he began to quiet
down a little. "I would I had his treacherous throat within my grasp,
that I might squeeze his inky soul back to the lower depths from whence
he sprung."

"Hush, you punkin headed peasant," sez I. "The' 's just as much of
Alfred's blood flowin' through his veins now as the' ever was."

"'T is not the money I have lost that makes me mad," sez Locals. "It's
finding out that a man can become so degenerate that he will impose
upon the very ones who save his life--deceive them, lie to them!"

"Oh, he ain't the only liar 'at was ever in this hotel," sez I; "an'
when it comes to the money YOU'VE lost, that'd be a small matter to get
mad over. He risked just as much money as we did, an' if he'd 'a' won,
he wouldn't 'a' won a cent more."

After a while they grew more resigned in their langwidge; but after we
had driven down to town without finding him, Hammy sez, "In sooth 't is
bitter truth that all the world's a stage; yet Fate, however cruel,
never decreed that I should play the second season, as servile server
to a worn out mine--my health is all right again, an' I'm goin' back
where a feller gets paid decent wages for makin'