line guidance and support.

My earnestness and solicitude were, I admit, prompted partly by a
desire to utilize this expensively projected expedition as a vehicle
for the accumulation of scientific data.

As soon as I heard of it I conceived the plan of attaching two members
of our Bronx Park scientific staff to the expedition--you, and Mr.
Brown.

But no sooner did these determined ladies hear of it than they repelled
the suggestion with indignation.

Now, the matter stands as follows: These ladies don't want any man in
the expedition; but they have at last realized that they've got to take
a guide or two. And there are no feminine guides in Alaska.

Therefore, considering the immense and vital importance of such an
opportunity to explore and report upon this unknown region at somebody
else's expense, I suggest that you and Brown meet these ladies at Lake
Mrs. Susan W. Pillsbury, which lies on the edge of the region to be
explored; that you, without actually perjuring yourselves too horribly,
convey to them the misleading impression that you are the promised
guides provided for them by a cowed and avuncular Government; and that
you take these fearsome ladies about and let them gaze at their
reflections in the various lakes named after them; and that, while the
expedition lasts, you secretly make such observations, notes, reports,
and collections of the flora and fauna of the region as your
opportunities may permit.

No time is to be lost. If, at Lake Susan W. Pillsbury, you find regular
guides awaiting these ladies, you will bribe these guides to go away
and you yourselves will then impersonate the guides. I know of no other
way for you to explore this region, as all our available resources at
Bronx Park have already been spent in painting appropriate scenery to
line the cages of the mammalia, and also in the present exceedingly
expensive expedition in search of the polka-dotted boom-bock, which is
supposed to inhabit the jungle beyond Lake Niggerplug.

My most solemn and sincere wishes accompany you. Bless you!

Farrago.

II

This, then, is how it came about that "Kitten" Brown and I were seated,
one midgeful morning in July, by the pellucid waters of Lake Susan W.
Pillsbury, gnawing sections from a greasily fried trout, upon which I had
attempted culinary operations.

Brown's baptismal name was William; but the unfortunate young ma