"I am sorry," says he, "to be unable to come to your business men's banquet. The building of a great auditorium in Lattimore is proof that we weren't so insane, after all. I suppose that the ebb and flow of the tide of progress, which yearly gains upon the shore, is inevitable, as things are hooked up; but, after the ebb, it's comforting to see your old predictions as to gain coming true, even if you do find yourself in the discard. It would be worth the trip only to see Captain Tolliver, and to hear him eliminate the _r_'s from his mother tongue. Give the dear old secesh my dearest love! "But I can't come, Al. I must be in Washington at that time on business of the greatest (presumptive) importance to the cattle interests of the buffalo-grass country. I could change my own dates; but my wife has arranged a tryst for a day certain with some specialists in her line in New York. She's quite the queen of the cattle range--in New York: and, to be dead truthful, she comes pretty near it out here. It is rumored that even the sheepmen speak well of her. "These Eastern trips are great things for her and the children. I'm riding the range so constantly, and get so much fun out of it, that I feel sort of undressed and embarrassed out of the saddle. In Washington I'm pointed out as a typical cowboy, the descendant of a Spanish vaquero and a trapper's daughter. This helps me to represent my constituents in the sessions of the Third House, and to get Congressional attention to the ax I want ground. I am looked upon as in line for the presidency of the Amalgamated Association of American Ax-grinders. "If we can make it, we'll look in on you on our way back; but we don't promise. With cattle scattered over two counties of buttes and canyons, we feel in a hurry when we get started home, after an absence sure to have been longer than we intended. Then, you know how I feel;--I wish the old town well, but I don't enjoy _every_ incident of my visits there. "We expect to see the Cecil Barr-Smiths in New York. Cecil is the whole thing now with their companies--a sort of professional president in charge of the American properties; and Mrs. Cecil is as well known in some mighty good circles in London as she used to be in Lynhurst Park.