timely article, with illustrations, about
Cervera's fleet being bottled up in the Harbour of Santiago. I bet he's
got Godey's Lady's Book for 1862 round there, if you looked for it."

Now a brief interlude for the ingestion of malt liquor, followed by a
pained recital of certain complications of the morning.

"That darned one-horse post-office down to Kulanche! What do you think?
I wanted to send a postal card to the North American Cleaning and Dye
Works, at Red Gap, for some stuff they been holding out on me a month,
and that office didn't have a single card in stock--nothing but some of
these fancy ones in a rack over on the grocery counter; horrible things
with pictures of brides and grooms on 'em in coloured costumes, with
sickening smiles on their faces, and others with wedding bells ringing
out or two doves swinging in a wreath of flowers--all of 'em having
mushy messages underneath; and me having to send this card to the North
American Cleaning and Dye Works, which is run by Otto Birdsall, a
smirking old widower, that uses hair oil and perfumery, and imagines
every woman in town is mad about him.

"The mildest card I could find was covered with red and purple
cauliflowers or something, and it said in silver print: 'With fondest
remembrance!' Think of that going through the Red Gap post-office to be
read by old Mis' Terwilliger, that some say will even open letters that
look interesting--to say nothing of its going to this fresh old Otto
Birdsall, that tried to hold my hand once not so many years ago.

"You bet I made the written part strong enough not to give him or any
other party a wrong notion of my sentiments toward him. At that, I guess
Otto wouldn't make any mistake since the time I give him hell last
summer for putting my evening gowns in his show window every time he'd
clean one, just to show off his work. It looked so kind of indelicate
seeing an empty dress hung up there that every soul in town knew
belonged to me.

"What's that? Oh, I wrote on the card that if this stuff of mine don't
come up on the next stage I'll be right down there, and when I'm through
handling him he'll be able to say truthfully that he ain't got a gray
hair in his head. I guess Otto will know my intentions are honest, in
spite of that 'fondest remembrance.'

"Then, on top of that, I had a run-in with the Swede for selling his
rotten whiskey to them poor Injin boys that had a fight last night after
they got tight on it. The