"She's—she's twenty-two—"
"Inches around or what?" Charley gasped.
"—and Ophelia is coming with her—Ophelia Cobb—C-o-double-b it is—is coming with her for a chaperon—"
"Great guns!" Skinny breathed,"—two females!"
"Hold still and I'll read it—no, you do it, Parker—I'm too full of emotion—my voice'd quiver—"
Parker read:
"Josiah Heck, Eagle Butte, Texas:
"Am sending my daughter, Carolyn June, out to your ranch for a while. She needs a change. She has broke all the he-human hearts in Hartville—that is all of them old enough or young enough to be broke—and is what's called a love-stimulator and won't settle. She is twenty-two and it's time she was calmed. Hoping six months on the Kiowa range will gentle her quite a lot, I am sympathetically your 1/2 brother, Simeon.
"P.S.—Mrs. Ophelia Cobb, a lady widow, is coming with her for a chaperon. Beware of both of them. They will arrive at Eagle Butte the 21st.—S."
"Gee, it's a long one!" Chuck said admiringly.