, incidentally, send out the "stock letters," which the girls
always jokingly called the "lessons."

One day one of the typewriters called my attention to the fact that for
originality I had been outdone by a fellow at Peoria, Illinois, who
advertised in the leading magazines to teach ventriloquism by mail. This
was certainly an innovation in the way of mail instruction. I thought a
little while about something entirely new that I could introduce. I soon
had it! I got up a correspondence course in courting for the purpose of
straightening out the crooked course of true love. I argued that nearly
everything else had been simplified save courting, which went on in the
old laborious manner with lovers' quarrels, heartaches, and ofttimes
life-time estrangements. The course was a success and many wrote for
"individual" instruction.

Things were going well and I had a lucrative business. I had been so busy
for several months that all my symptoms had sunk into desuetude. I had
almost forgotten that I was an invalid and that I should take care of my
precious health, what little I had left, when the thought occurred to me,
as it had several years before, that I was working too hard. Then, too, I
became a little conscience-stricken. My conscience had never before
troubled me, probably from the fact that I had never worked it overtime. I
began to think that in these correspondence courses I might not be giving
my patrons value received for their money. A pretty record for me to leave
behind me, I thought. So as I had a competency anyway, I paid off my
helpers and went out of business.

As I now thought I was again on the very edge of a nervous breakdown, I
concluded to travel for my health. Where to go was the next question! A
medical friend suggested a sea-voyage, but advised me to first take a sail
for a day or so on Lake Michigan. I did so and became so seasick that
death would have been joyously welcomed. I did not take the proposed
voyage, as I had had enough.

But the germ that prompted me to travel for my health had a firm grip on
me. Colorado was my first objective point, and on the first day of my
arrival there I went to the top of one of their snow-capped mountains. I
had not taken into account the effects of altitude upon a person not
accustomed to it, and in consequence of my sudden ascent I had a slight
expectoration of blood. This seemed to be cause for genuine alarm, and I
now realized that I was to be a victim o