"Sez I to myself continual: 'That's you, Daniel.'
"Well, Adolphe and me, we talked this thing, wakin' and sleepin'. I'd more plans than a cow has capers.
"We got up a letter'd melt snow, and then we waited.
"First, nuthin' was said to the boys, but when they caught on to my hangin' round the post-office they began to josh. I always stepped up gallant to the post-mistress, sirs—I've turned the cheeks of most women pink in my day—and I said, said I:
"'Letter, please?' with a doffin' of my hat, and a risin' inflection very polite but understandin'. It got to be so that when there never was anythin' handed out the boys'd take to coughin' down a laugh.
"After awhile it grew so's none of 'em turned up or paid any attention. Even Adolphe—he took to goin' to sleep when I talked her.
"Then a whole year ran out to summer again, and I couldn't unthrone her that reigned in my heart.
"One day I said to Adolphe, a-workin' away:
"'Blamed if I can forget her, the ornamint,' I said.
"Adolphe he went in for grub that day and came out late, a-holdin' of a envelope.