Occasionally he is absent, and the welcome news coming to my
ear, I mount my fiery hoss and gallop wildly up to the store, enter with
something of the sang froid, grace, abandon and recherche nonchalance
with which Charles Yates ushers ladies and gentlemen to their seats in
the opera-house, and, nervously fingering my butcher knife, fiercely
demand goods and chattels of the clerk. This plan always succeeds. This
is by way of explanation of this vast and unnecessary stationery of
which this letter is composed. I am always in too big a hurry to demur
at kind and quality, but when I get to town I will write you on small
gilt-edged paper that would suit even the fastidious and discriminating
taste of a Logan.
When I get to the city, which will be shortly, I will send you some
account of this country and its inmates. You are right, I have almost
forgotten what a regular old, gum-chewing, ice-cream destroying, opera
ticket vortex, ivory-clawing girl looks like. Last summer a very fair
specimen of this kind ranged over about Fort Snell, and I used to ride
over twice a week on mail days and chew the end of my riding whip while
she "Stood on the Bridge" and "Gathered up Shells on the Sea Shore" and
wore the "Golden Slippers.
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