“It’s somewhat a town--if I’ve caught your American slang,” he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “You have the garden spot of the West, if not of the civilized world, and your people display a charm that must be, I dare say, typically American. Altogether, I am enchanted with the wonders I have beheld since landing at your New York, particularly with the habit your best people have of roughing it in camps like that of Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson among the mountains of New York, where I was most pleasantly entertained by himself and his delightful wife. The length of my stay among you is uncertain, though I have been pressed by the Flouds, with whom I am stopping, and by the C. Belknap-Jacksons to prolong it indefinitely, and in fact to identify myself to an extent with your social life.” The Colonel is a man of distinguished appearance, with the seasoned bearing of an old campaigner, and though at moments he displays that cool reserve so typical of the English gentleman, evidence was not lacking last evening that he can unbend on occasion. At the lawn fête held in the spacious grounds of Judge Ballard, where a myriad Japanese lanterns made the scene a veritable fairyland, he was quite the most sought-after notable present, and gayly tripped the light fantastic toe with the élite of Red Gap’s smart set there assembled. From his cordial manner of entering into the spirit of the affair we predict that Colonel Ruggles will be a decided acquisition to our social life, and we understand that a series of recherché entertainments in his honour has already been planned by Mrs. County Judge Ballard, who took the distinguished guest under her wing the moment he appeared last evening. Welcome to our city, Colonel! And may the warm hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an ornament! In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fell from my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoarse with emotion: “Do you realize the dreadful thing you’ve done to us?” Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that I had said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he had wretchedly twisted my harmless words. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, also in a voice hoarse with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He, too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared not trust himself to speak. “The wretched man,” declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, “simply can’t realize--how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able to live it down!” “Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing,” hissed Belknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. “Imagine their blackguardly humour!”