I kept it dark and Ezra came back to life by easy stages and in such a way as not to attract any special attention to himself. He managed to get the impression around that he'd been snatched from the jaws of death by a rescue party at the last moment. The last I heard of him he was in New York and drawing ten thousand a year, which was more than he could have worked up to in the leather business in a century. Fifty or a hundred years ago, when there was good money in poetry, a man with Simpkins' imagination would naturally have been a bard, as I believe they used to call the top-notchers; and, once he was turned loose to root for himself, he instinctively smelled out the business where he could use a little poetic license and made a hit in it. When a pup has been born to point partridges there's no use trying to run a fox with him. I was a little uncertain about you at first, but I guess the Lord intended you to hunt with the pack. Get the scent in your nostrils and keep your nose to the ground, and don't worry too much about the end of the chase. The fun of the thing's in the run and not in the finish. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 9 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at Hot | | Springs, Arkansas, to his | | son, Pierrepont, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont | | has been investing more | | heavily in roses than his | | father thinks his means | | warrant, and he tries to | | turn his thoughts to | | staple groceries. | +-----------------------------+ IX HOT SPRINGS, January 30, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ I knew right off that I had made a mistake when I opened the inclosed and saw that it was a bill for fifty-two dollars, "for roses sent, as per orders, to Miss Mabel Dashkam." I don't just place Miss Dashkam, but if she's the daughter of old Job Dashkam, on the open Board, I should say, on general principles, that she was a fine girl to let some other fellow marry. The last time I saw her, she inventoried about $10,000 as she stood--allowing that her diamonds would scratch glass--and that's more capital than any woman has a right to tie up on her back, I don't care how rich her father is. And Job's fortune is one of that brand which foots up to a million in the newspapers and leaves the heirs in debt to the lawyers who settle the estate.