Even this, I think, is excelled by the case of a remarkably absent-minded man in the western part of Massachusetts, whose freaks of memory made him the sport of the country for miles around. He once went for days without sleeping because he was very busy in his library and didn't leave it, so did not see his bed as a reminder. He capped the climax, however, when he came home one night and hanged himself to the bed-post by his suspenders. As he was wealthy and cheerful, with much to live for, it is generally believed that he mistook himself for his own pants. At all events absent-mindedness, like bad penmanship, is a sign of genius, and, as a loving father, you should be glad that I have one of the symptoms.
I must frankly admit that the addressing of envelopes is not the most fascinating of pursuits. If I must write in order to earn my salary from the house, I should much prefer to do it across the bottom of checks. I would then feel that the business was more dependent upon me and also that it might mean more to me. It has got so that the sight of a U. S. stamp after business hours gives me a bilious attack. Let me at least fill out the checks if I don't sign 'em. Then I'll be better able to imagine that I'm the real thing around here, even if my salary's attenuation continues to eat a big hole in my sainted mother's pin money. The next best thing to owning an auto, you know, is to wear an auto coat.
Of course Milligan made a noisy, braying, Hibernian ass of himself when he came around to take your cussing of him out on me. He swore and danced and waved his arms, and got still madder when I asked him what he was Donnybrooking around in Chicago for. He didn't seem to like it a bit when I told him that one little finger of the girl I wrote to, was worth a thousand times as much as himself and the hogs he associated with, put together. He allowed that I was an impudent young jackass and the dead copy of my father; went on to say that if he hadn't started the firm and kept his weather-eye on it ever since, you would have been in the bankruptcy court or jail years ago. When I got mad and told him that I'd have him bounced, he said you didn't dare to fire him because he knew the secret of—but really I don't think it safe to entrust it to paper.
Milligan is a dirty beast who belongs to the Shy-of-Water tribe and smokes a horror of a clay pipe. To think that I, who have mingled with gentlemen for the past four years, should be compelled to breathe his air is too much. I won't work under a man who habitually insults my honored father. If you haven't pride enough to rebel, I have. He is vulgar enough to call you the "ould man," and I am morally certain he is a pretty liberal toucher of that private stock you keep in your inner office. For heaven's sake, throw him out and purify the place.
Jim Donnelly seems to have taken quite a shine to me, and last night he invited me to his club for dinner. This was a great relief for yours truly, for between you and me, Ma has got pretty stingy with the table since you left, and is trying to use up a box of our products she found down cellar. (By the way, I notice from a slip Milligan gave me to file to-day, that you crossed off all the Graham foods the steward of your private car had picked out for your trip—wise old dad!) So Jim's invite was like an early cocktail to Col. R. E. Morse. After dinner we hied ourselves to a vaudeville show, which I simply mention in a business way. I see you've an "ad" on the drop curtain at the Hyperion, and if you won't kill the poet who wrote those verses, I must. Such awful rot as:
"We corrall the choicest hogs,
Stab 'em, scald 'em, flay 'em;
Then you get the superfine
Sausage made by Graham,"
may appeal to you as A1 inspiration, but trust an humble member of your family when he says that you simply nauseate the public by such tomfool stuff. You're rich enough to hire Howells if you like, so there's no excuse for this.