'Eh? Well, that's rather an idea. Let's have a shot. Here you are then. Pencil? Right? Well: "Dear Mr. Gubbins, yours of 14th, received with thanks." Got that? Yes; well, tell him--that is--"You are quite mistaken, I assure you, about your butter having been held back till the bottom was out of the market." Old fool's always grousing about his rotten butter. You see, the fact is his butter is second or third quality stuff, and he reads the quotations in the paper for the primest, and kicks like a steer because he doesn't get the same, or a penny more. Always threatening to change his agents, and I wish to God he would; only, o' course, it doesn't do to tell 'em so. There's a lot like Gubbins, an' one has to try an' sweeten 'em a bit once a week or so. Yes! Well, where were we? Eh? That all right?' 'Yes, sir. "Yours faithfully," or "Yours truly," sir?' 'Oh, well, I always say: "'shuring you vour bes' 'tention, bleeve me, yours faithfully, J. Canning and Son." It pleases them, an'----' 'Yes, sir.' And some of the others were a good deal more sketchy, but fortunately there were only five in all. I asked Mr. John to let me take the original letters. It was plain that dictation was not his strong point. Neither, I thought, had he much idea of letter-writing; whereas I, so I flattered myself, could do it rather well. At least I had read something about commercial correspondence, and had also read the published letters of many famous people. So, as soon as I decently could, I pretended Mr. John had really dictated replies to his five letters, and that I had recorded his words in indelible shorthand. Then I said I would run away and write the letters while he kept his engagements. 'Right!' he said. 'Tell you what. Go into my father's room. He's gone out now, and you'll find paper and that there.' So I made my first practical essay in commercial correspondence from the chair of the head of the firm, and among the fumes of the head's morning cigar. In an old pocket-book I discovered a year or two ago the draft of the first letter I wrote for J. Canning and Son. Here it is: '_To_ Mr. R. B. Gubbins, 'Ferndale Farm, 'Unaville, N.S.W. 'Nov. 3rd, 1879.