LETTER No. VI.
The seat at his father's mailing desk does not
appear especially comfortable to the Junior
Graham, if we may judge by the
tone of his correspondence.
Chicago, Aug. 30, 189—
My Dear Father:
Permit me to say, most respectfully of course, that you are overdoing the emotional business as to my mistake in mailing a note of invitation to the theatre to Jim Donnelly in place of a letter denying his claim of shortage on hams, and denouncing him as a double-distilled prevaricator for venturing the same. As a matter of fact, it was a great stroke, and I've ordered the cashier in your name to put a two-dollar ell on my financial structure. Donnelly came in to-day and gave us a thousand-dollar order for short ribs; said he was devilish glad to find a bit of humanity and sentiment in the house of Graham, and that if you had more blood and less lard in your veins, Chicago would be a better place to live in. He's fond of the old burgh, at that, for he licked a Boston drummer last week for claiming that the Boston Symphony Orchestra was better than Theodore Thomas'. You see Jim has just become engaged and my little break struck him in a tender spot.
I note with pain, dear dad, that you make a great hullabaloo over my robbing you of your time by writing that note. Theoretically you may be right, but practically your kick is so small that a respectable jack-rabbit would be ashamed of it. Let's see; I work—theoretically—from 8 to 6, one hour out for lunch. Under your munificent system of payment I get about 15 cents an hour, or a quarter of a cent a minute. It took me two minutes to write the note. Ergo, I owe you half a cent, whereas you owe me the profit on the thousand-dollar order of short ribs, which Donnelly says must be something immense. Let's square up on that basis.
But even had results been worse, absent-mindedness is a fault, not a crime. Literature is full of well-authenticated instances of that perversity of wit which makes one do the wrong thing instead of the much easier right one. The poet Cowper's feat of boiling his watch while he timed it by an egg is really a very commonplace illustration of the vagaries of the human mind.
It was surpassed by Dean Stanley and Dr. Jowett, who were both extremely absent-minded and very fond of tea. One morning they breakfasted together and in their chat each of them drank seven or eight cups of tea. As the session broke up, Dr. Jowett happened to glance at the table. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "I forgot to put in the tea." Neither had noticed it.