they were to arrive at the station at
11.45. Why did, your h. c. send me this useless message? Can't he read?
Is he dead?"

"It's the rules."

"No, that does not account for it. Would he have sent it if it had been
three years old, I in the meantime deceased, and he aware of it?"

The boy didn't know.

"Because, you know, a rule which required him to forward to the cemetery
to-day a dispatch due three years ago, would be as good a rule as one
which should require him to forward a telegram to me to-day which he
knew had lost all its value an hour or two before he started it.
The construction of such a rule would discredit an idiot; in fact an
idiot--I mean a common ordinary Christian idiot, you understand--would
be ashamed of it, and for the sake of his reputation wouldn't make it.
What do you think?"

He replied with much natural brilliancy that he wasn't paid for
thinking.

This gave me a better opinion of the commercial intelligence pervading
his morgue than I had had before; it also softened my feelings toward
him, and also my tone, which had hitherto been tinged with bitterness.

"Let bygones be bygones," I said, gently, "we are all erring creatures,
and mainly idiots, but God made us so and it is dangerous to criticise."

Sincerely
S. L. CLEMENS.

One day there arrived from Europe a caller with a letter of
introduction from Elizabeth, Queen of Rumania, better known as
Carmen Sylva. The visitor was Madam Hartwig, formerly an American
girl, returning now, because of reduced fortunes, to find profitable
employment in her own land. Her husband, a man of high principle,
had declined to take part in an "affair of honor," as recognized by
the Continental code; hence his ruin. Elizabeth of Rumania was one
of the most loved and respected of European queens and an author of
distinction. Mark Twain had known her in Vienna. Her letter to him
and his own letter to the public (perhaps a second one, for its date
is two years later) follow herewith.

From Carmen Sylva to Mark Twain:

BUCAREST, May 9, 1902.

HONORED MASTER,--If I venture to address you on behalf of a poor lady,
who is stranded in Bucarest I hope not to be too disagreeable.

Mrs. Hartwig left America at the age of fourteen in order to learn to
sing which she