When Billy got through, Ma smiled across to me and said, "How much Mr. Poindexter talks like your father!"
P.S.--We are going to a masquerade ball to-night at the De Porques. Old De P. offers a prize of $100 for the most hideous make-up. I'm going as Milligan.
_His governor's visit to Hot Springs, a contretemps with a British Lord, together with experiences with a few physicians, inspire Pierrepont's pen._
There's no doubt that the Hot Springs are great for a good many ailments, and I'm glad you are improving. Professor Plexus, our old instructor in calisthenics at Harvard, used to take the trip to Arkansas with John L. Sullivan, twice a year, and they both said the treatment was fine. I don't think Sullivan had rheumatism, but your case may not be the same as his, and the scalding process will probably do you more good than it does a regular Graham hog. The boys around the office laugh considerably when they mention you and the Hot Springs, which makes me rather warm under the collar, for I can't stand having a father of mine misapprehended. I know you for what you are, but they know you for what they think you are, and provisional knowledge, you know, goes a long ways in the provision business.
Speaking of the Hot Springs reminds me of a story Professor Plexus used to tell about the Arkansas boiling vats. According to him, there used to be a morgue connected with the establishment, for the use of those who were unlucky enough to succumb to the treatment. An old Irishman was the general factotum of the place, and it happened that he was afflicted with a bronchial disturbance that was the envy of every cougher who visited the spot. Meeting him one day in the abode of the departed, one of the doctors remarked to him, on hearing a particularly sepulchral wheeze:
"Pat, I wouldn't have your cough for five hundred dollars."
"Is thot so, sorr?" retorted the son of Erin. "Well," pointing with his thumb to the inner room where the departed patients lay on slabs covered with sheets, "they's a felly in there who wud give five t'ousand uf _he_ cud hav ut."
I simply mention this little incident in passing to show that all of us prefer the ills we have to those we know not of. I would rather be a mailing clerk at eight per than a free man working freight trains for transportation and relying on hand-outs for sustenance in place of Ma's frugal, but certain _table d'hôte_.