Loudon, don't be hard on your miserable partner. The funny dog business is what kills. I fear your stern rectitude of mind like the eye of God. I cannot think but what some of my books seem mixed up; otherwise, I don't seem to see my way as plain as I could wish to. Or else my brain is gone soft. Loudon, if there should be any unpleasantness you can trust me to do the right thing and keep you clear. I've been telling them already how you had no business grip and never saw the books. O, I trust I have done right in this I I knew it was a liberty; I know you may justly complain, but it was some things that were said. And mind you, all legitimate business! Not even your shrinking sensitiveness could find fault with the first look of one of them if they had panned out right. And you know the _Flying Scud_ was the biggest gamble of the crowd, and that was your own idea. Mamie says she never could bear to look you in the face if that idea had been mine, she is so conscientious! "Your broken-hearted "JIM." The last began without formality:-- "This is the end of me commercially. I give up; my nerve has gone. I suppose I ought to be glad, for we're through the court. I don't know as ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't remember. If it pans out--the wreck, I mean--we'll go to Europe and live on the interest of our money. No more work for me. I shake when people speak to me. I have gone on, hoping and hoping and working and working, and the lead has pinched right out. I want to lie on my back in a garden and read Shakespeare and E.P. Roe. Don't suppose it's cowardice, Loudon. I'm a sick man. Rest is what I must have. I've worked hard all my life; I never spared myself, every dollar I ever made I've coined my brains for it. I've never done a mean thing; I've lived respectable, and given to the poor. Who has a better right to a holiday than I have? And I mean to have a year of it straight out, and if I don't I shall lie right down here in my tracks, and die of worry and brain trouble. Don't mistake, that's so. If there are any pickings at all, _trust Speedy_; don't let the creditors get wind of what there is. I helped you when you were down, help me now. Don't deceive yourself; you've got to help me right now or never. I am clerking, and _not fit to cipher_. Mamie's typewriting at the Phoenix Guano Exchange, down town. The light is right out of my life. I know you'll not like to do what I propose. Think only of this, that it's life or death for "JIM PINKERTON."