P.S.—Give it him good!—don't mention my address and he can't complain to me how you treat him. Bust his bugle!
J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.
"STINGER" OFFICE, Friday, 2 P.M.
Business has detained me from the office until now, and what do I find? Not a soul about the place, no copy, not a stickful of live matter on the galleys! There can be no paper this week. What you have all done with yourselves I am sure I don't know; one would suppose there had been smallpox about the place. You will please come down and explain this Hegira at once—at once, if you please!
P.S.—That troublesome Muskler—you may remember he dropped in on Monday to inquire about something or other—has taken a sort of shop exactly opposite here, and seems, at this distance, to be doing something to a shotgun. I presume he is a gunsmith. So we are precious well rid of him.
Peter Pitchin, Editor to J. Munniglut, Proprietor.
PIER NO. 3, Friday Evening.
Just a line or two to say I am suddenly called away to bury my sick mother. When that is off my mind I'll write you what I know about the Hegira, the Flight into Egypt, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and whatever else you would like to learn. There is nothing mean about me! I don't think there has been any wilful desertion. You may engage an editor for, say, fifty years, with the privilege of keeping him regularly, if, at the end of that time, I should break my neck hastening back.
P.S.—I hope that poor fellow Muskier will make a fair profit in the gunsmithing line. Jump him for an ad!