One day I was walking down Fifth Avenue, it was very hot, so I entered what appeared to be a "sweet" shop. Buxom, handsome young women were behind the long counter, so I approached one and humbly asked for a "lemon squash." "Wotsat?" she barked, and looked annoyed. "A lemon squash," I repeated. She seemed to think that I was insulting her, and her friends gathered around. Finally I said: "Give me anything you like as long as it is cool." "Got yer check?" she replied. I begged her pardon. Looking furious, she indicated a small desk behind which another young lady sat, and I went over and confided in her. She smiled and explained that I really wanted a lemonade or a lemon phosphate. I denied any desire for a lemon phosphate. Are not phosphates used for agricultural purposes? This young lady was awfully decent and said, "How do you like York?" but before I could reply she said, "York! It's the finest place in the world." I said I liked it very much indeed, but of course there were other places, and what sayeth the text, "One star differeth from another star in glory." All was going well until "Peanut," a tall animated straw I had known on the ship rushed in laughing like a jackass. He seemed to regard New York as something too funny for words, and giggled like an idiot. Now I am sure that these young ladies must be very nice, gentle, tame creatures to people who know them, but they frighten me. I desire only to please, but the more pleasantly I behave to them the more I seem to insult them. Some day I am going to enter one of these stores and bark out my order and see what happens. I have now been in Bethlehem about two weeks. P----, a sapper subaltern, conducted me down to the great steel town. With Jack and all my luggage we left New York at nine o'clock.