Dear Alice (Ben Bolt):—I feel justified in calling you "Alice," now it is settled that you are not to be my companion for long and (to you, doubtless) weary weeks, a liberty I should never have dreamed of taking had you decided to go. I do not know in what way I have offended you, which I judge by your letter to be the case, but as the children say, "If I've done anything I'm sorry for, I'm glad of it." (Of course I don't mean exactly that.) The reason I write this is to ask you to dine with me (in a highly respectable public dining room—no cabinet particulaire, mind!) some evening before the 12th, when I am to sail.
If you will do this, I will fill your shell-like ears with such an account of your Rival that you will acquit her of intending any of the horrors you intimate. She is neither, I believe, a sinful creature nor a dunce—just a sweet, strong-minded, trusting seeker after change and rest.
And I don't like your insinuations, either, about my own moral character. If you knew me, I should not blame you so much, but as you don't—it's simply reprehensible. I have no intention of "soiling my soul," or that of any other person, but if that awful event happens (I wonder how I would look with a soiled soul!) you will be to blame. If you really thought I was in danger, why did you not do the patriotic thing and offer to go in her place? That would have disposed of the s—s—possibility.
Now, if you have not already thrown this down in a rage—I judge you to be a woman of the most fiendish temper!—let me be sensible for just one moment. I am recovering slowly from a long illness and am as harmless as a dove. I have, honestly, some work for a typewriter to do, and my physician has advised me to take one. The young lady who has agreed to go is not the sort you seem to imagine. She has consented only after the most distressing stipulations in regard to my conduct—all of which were entirely unnecessary, by the way. I am to file a bond to return her to New York by May 1st in absolutely perfect condition.
Come and dine with me, Alice dear, and have your doubts removed. I won't bite you, nor offer the slightest familiarity, upon my word! Name your hotel and, provided it is of undoubted respectability, I will meet you there at any hour you choose, after 6 P.M., or I will send a carriage for you. I only wish I could bring 'Marjorie'—isn't it a perfectly sweet name! One sight of her soulful eyes would say more than all my protestations. Unhappily she is out of town, and I am afraid she wouldn't like to be exhibited, if she were here.
You'd best come.
Yours Fraternally,
D. CAMWELL.
The Lambs, Dec. 31, 1897.
It didn't seem too funny, when I read it over, as I thought it would, but I sent it to East Sixteenth Street by a messenger that I summoned, telling him to bring an answer, if there was any, and to return for his pay, if there was none. He came back in half an hour, saying that a boy at the house took the letter up stairs, presumably to Miss B., and returned in a few minutes stating that she would reply by mail. As this exhausted all the fun I could expect out of that matter for the day, I went over to the Club and lounged away the afternoon.