It was like the two men that Dickens--I believe it was Dickens--tells about: Somebody gives A a concertina, but he can't play on it; winter coming on and no overcoat; he can't wear the concertina any more than he can tootle it. A few blocks away is a fellow, Mr. B. He can play a concertina something grand, but he hasn't got one and his fingers itch. He spends all his ready money on a brand-new overcoat, and just then his aunt sends him another one. He thinks he'll just swap one of them overcoats for a concertina. So he advertises in an exchange column. About the same time, A advertises that he'll trade one house-broken concertina for a nice overcoat. But does either A or B ever see B's or A's advertisements? Not on your beautiful daguerreotype. That was the way with us-all in New York. The town was full of lonesome strangers, and we went moping round, stumbling over each other and not daring to speak. They call us "transients" here. It's like a common sailor that's lost at sea; he's only a "casualty." So us poor, homeless dogs in New York are only transients. Why, do you know, I was that lonely I could have stood out in the square like a lonely old cow in the rain, and just mooed for somebody to take me in. I'd have telegraphed for you and the childern to come to town, but Texas is so far away, and you'd have got here too late, and you couldn't come anyway, being sick, as you wrote me, and one of the kids having malary. How is his blessed self to-day? I hope you're feeling better. Telegraph if you ain't, and I'll take the first train home. Well, last night I ate a horrible mockery of a Christmas dinner in a deserted restaurant, and it gave me heartburn (in addition to heartache) and a whole brood-stable of nightmares. I went to bed early, and stayed awake late. Gee! that was an awful night. I tried Philosophy--the next station beyond Despair. I said to myself, "You old fool, why in the name of all that's sensible should you feel so excited about one day more than another?" I wasn't so lonely the day before Christmas, I ain't so lonely to-day, but then I was like a small boy with the mumps and the earache on the Fourth of July. The firecrackers will pop just as lively another day, but--well, the universe was simply throwed all out of gear, like it must have been when Joshua held up the moon--or was it the sun? You remember reading me once about--I reckon it was Mr. Aldrich's pleasing idea of the last man on earth; everybody killed off by a pestilence or something, and him setting there by his lonely little lonesome; and what would he have done if he had heard his door-bell ring? Well, I reckon he'd have done what I'd have done if I'd met a friend--given one wild whoop, wrapped his arms round his neck, kissed him on both cheeks, and died with a faint gurgle of joy. I'd of been glad to have died so, too.