.
I hope that the little boys and girls who read this, and who may
hereafter become presidents or wives of presidents, will bear this in
mind, and always have a kind word for one and all, whether they feel
that way or not.

But I started out to speak of porters and not reporters. I carry with
me, this year, a small, sorrel bag, weighing a little over twenty
ounces. It contains a slight bottle of horse medicine and a powder rag.
Sometimes it also contains a costly robe de nuit, when I do not forget
and leave said robe in a sleeping car or hotel. I am not overdrawing
this matter, however, when I say honestly that the shrill cry of fire at
night in most any hotel in the United States would now bring to the
fire-escape from one to six employes of said hotel wearing these costly
vestments with my brief but imperishable name engraven on the bosom.

This little traveling bag, which is not larger than a man's hand, is
rudely pulled out of my grasp as I enter an inn, and it has cost me $29
to get it back again from the porter. Besides, I have paid $8.35 for new
handles to replace those that have been torn off in frantic scuffles
between the porter and myself to see which would get away with it.

Yesterday I was talking with a reformed lecturer about this peculiarity
of the porters. He said he used to lecture a great deal at moderate
prices throughout the country, and after ten years of earnest toil he
was enabled to retire with a rich experience and $9 in money. He
lectured on phrenology and took his meals with the chairman of the
lecture committee. In Ouray, Colorado, the baggageman allowed his trunk
to fall from a great height, and so the lid was knocked off and the bust
which the professor used in his lecture was busted. He therefore had to
borrow a bald-headed man to act as bust for him in the evening. After
the close of the lecture the professor found that the bust had stolen
the gross receipts from his coat tail pocket while he was lecturing. The
only improbable feature about this story is the implication that a
bald-headed man would commit a crime.

But still he did not become soured. He pressed on and lectured to the
gentle janitors of the land in piercing tones. He was always kind to
every one, even when people criticised his lecture and went away before
he got through. He forgave them and paid his bills just the same as he
did when people liked him.

Once a newspaper man did him a great wrong by saying that "the l