I'm expecting to arrive in Oakland (Key Route Inn, probably) late in the evening of the 22d of this month and dine at Carlt's on the 24th--my birthday. Anyhow, I've invited myself, though it is possible they may be away on their vacation. Carlt has promised to try to get his "leave" changed to a later date than the one he's booked for. * * * * * Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. P.S.--Just learned that we can not leave here until the 19th--which will bring me into San Francisco on the 26th. Birthday dinner served in diner--last call! I've _read_ the Browning poem and I now know why there was a Browning. Providence foresaw you and prepared him for you--blessed be Providence! * * * Mrs. Havens asks me to come to them at Sag Harbor--and shouldn't I like to! * * * Sure the song of the Sag Harbor frog would be music to me--as would that of the indigenous duckling. [The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., December 19, 1912.] MY DEAR MR. CAHILL, I thank you for the article from _The Argonaut_, and am glad to get it for a special reason, as it gives me your address and thereby enables me to explain something. When, several years ago, you sent me a similar article I took it to the editor of The National Geographical Magazine (I am a member of the Society that issues it) and suggested its publication. I left it with him and hearing nothing about it for several months called at his office _twice_ for an answer, and for the copy if publication was refused. The copy had been "mislaid"--lost, apparently--and I never obtained it. Meantime, either I had "mislaid" your address, or it was only on the copy. So I was unable to write you. Indirectly, afterward, I heard that you had left California for parts to me unknown. Twice since then I have been in San Francisco, but confess that I did not think of the matter. Cahill's projection[16] is indubitably the right one, but you are "up against" the ages and will be a long time dead before it finds favor, or I'm no true pessimist. [16] The Butterfly Map of the World. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [The Olympia Apartments, Washington, D. C., January 17, 1913.] MY DEAR RUTH, It's "too bad" that I couldn't remain in Oakland and Berkeley another month to welcome you, but I fear it will "have to go at that," for I've no expectation of ever seeing California again. I like the country as well as ever, but I _don't_ like the rule of labor unions, the grafters and the suffragettes. So far as I am concerned they may stew in their own juice; I shall not offer myself as an ingredient. It is pleasant to know that you are all well, including Johnny, poor little chap. You are right to study philology and rhetoric. Surely there must be _some_ provision for your need--a university where one cannot learn one's own language would be a funny university.