But I--oh, that deep, holler room in my heart into which no stranger looked; that room hung with dark, sombry black; remembrances of him the great ocean wuz a-goin' to sever me from--he on land and I on sea--ten thousand miles of land and water goin' to separate us; how could I bear it, how wuz I goin' to stand it? I kep' up, made remarks and answered 'em mekanically, but oh, the feelin's I felt on the inside. How little can we tell in happy lookin' crowds how many of the gay throng hear the rattle of their own private skeletons above the gayest music! Well, we got home to the Palace hotel in good season, I a-talkin' calmly and cheerfully, but sayin' in the inside, "'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humbly there is no place like home." My home wuz my pardner, the place where he wuz would look better than any palace. I went up to my room and after gettin' Tommy to bed, who wuz cross and sleepy, I finished the letter to my help, for we wuz goin' to start in the mornin'. "Oh, Philury!" the letter run, "my feelin's, you cannot parse 'em, even if you wuz better grounded in grammar than I think you be. Not one word from my beloved pardner do I hear--is Josiah dead?" sez I. "But if he is don't tell me; I could not survive, and Tommy has got to be went with. But oh! if sickness and grief for me has bowed that head, bald, but most precious to me, deal with him as you would deal with a angel unawares. Bile his porridge, don't slight it or let it be lumpy, don't give him dish-watery tea, brile his toast and make his beef tea as you would read chapters of scripter--carefully and not with eye service. Hang my picter on the wall at the foot of the bed, and if it affects him too much, hang my old green braize veil over it, you'll find it in the hall cupboard." But why should I sadden and depress the hearts of a good natered public? I writ seven sheets of foolscap, and added to what I had already writ, it made it too big to send by mail, so I put it in a collar box and sent it by express, charges paid, for I knew the dear man it wuz addressed to, if he wuz still able to sense anything, would like it better that way. And then my letter sent off I begun to pack my hair trunk anew.