as pleasantly flushed; she
had just parted lingeringly from her steady company, whose name was Mr.
Lawrence J. McLaughlin, in the lower hallway, which is the trysting
place and courting place of tenement-dwelling sweethearts, and now she
had come to make ready the family's cold Sunday night tea. At sight of
her the corporal had another inspiration--his second within the hour.
His brow smoothed and he fetched a sigh of relief.

"'Lo, grosspops!" she said. "How's every little thing? The kiddo all
right?"

She unpinned a Sunday hat that was plumed like a hearse and slipped on
a long apron that covered her from Robespierre bib to hobble hem.

"Girl," said her grandfather, "would you make tomorrow for me at the
office a copy of this letter on the typewriter machine?"

He spoke in German and she answered in New-Yorkese, while her nimble
fingers wrestled with the task of back-buttoning her apron.

"Sure thing! It won't take hardly a minute to rattle that off.
Funny-looking old thing!" she went on, taking up the creased and faded
original. "Who wrote it? And whatcher goin' to do with it, grosspops?"

"That," he told her, "is mine own business! It is for you, please, to
make the copy and bring both to me tomorrow, the letter and also the
copy."

So on Monday morning, when the rush of taking dictation at the office of
the Great American Hosiery Company, in Broome Street, was well abated,
the competent Miss Hortense copied the letter, and that same evening her
grandfather mailed it to the Sun, accompanied by his own introduction.
The Sun straightway printed it without change and--what was still
better--with the sender's name spelled out in capital letters; and that
night, at the place down by the corner, Corporal Jacob Speck was a
prophet not without honor in his own country--much honor, in fact,
accrued.

If you have read certain other stories of mine you may remember that,
upon a memorable occasion, Judge William Pitman Priest made a trip to
New York and while there had dealings with a Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee, a
promoter of gas and other hot-air propositions; and that during the
course of his stay in the metropolis he made the acquaintance of one
Malley, a Sun reporter. This had happened some years back, but Malley
was still on the staff of the Sun. It happened also that, going through
the paper to clip out and measure up his own space, Malley came upon the
corporal's contribution. Glancing over it idly, he caught the n