ter of Hoodoo Philosophy, I shall grit my teeth
and push ahead as I have done a thousand times before. My debts are
growing like a snow ball and although I am not entirely broke, I am so
badly bent that it ceases to be funny. There isn't a blooded dog here
except the ones we Easterners bring. The Sioux Falls dogs are like the
people--you can't tell exactly what breed they are, but as a few of the
N. Y. lawyers and doctors and a few of the N. Y. dogs have remained
here, we hope for a better blending in the next litter.

There is an Englishman here who calls himself "Chappie" but "Baw Jove"
he never saw the other side of the Atlantic if I am any judge. But you
can hand these people any sort of pill and they'll swallow it without
making a face. We have no indigestible pleasures here, but the food. I
am suffering from gastric nostalgia. I was so hungry for something sharp
and sour last night that I bought a bottle of horse-radish and ate it in
cold blood. Today my digestive apparatus is slumped and I feel like the
ragged edge of a misspent career.

Every night the man in the next room, treats himself to a skin full and
comes home so pleasantly lit up that he has to be put to bed. Last night
he must have drunk like the sands of the desert, for he was a bit more
tipsy than ever and flung apologies and hiccoughs over my transom.

I look back upon my old life as an impression received in the dawn, and
already it seems but a level highroad on a gray day. Marriage laws were
made by old maids--any one can see that. And they have decreed that
conjugal love, apart from passion, is elevating and a woman in yielding
herself may evict the sanctum of love if the man may legally call her
his own. It's all wrong dear--woman has been sacrificed to the family.
And what a degrading imitation of Nature to propagate the species. How
glorious never again to be shod in the slippers of matrimony--I seem to
demand the advantages of marriage with none of the drawbacks.

To return to things less serious, Othello hates something about my new
combination lingerie and barks like fury when I put it on--maybe it is
the blue ribbon--I'll try a dash of lavender tomorrow.

You will agree that my _geistes ab vesend_ has reached an alarming
degree when I tell you that this A. M. after my tub, I liberally dashed
tooth powder all over my body instead of talcum.

My affection is all for you--for the opposite sex it seems to have grown
as cold as a raked-out