AS--WHY I WILL NOT GO THERE--THE STORY OF
A FRONTIER MAN.

_New York, March 5._

Have had cold audiences in Maine and Connecticut; and indifferent ones
in several cities, while I have been warmly received in many others. It
seems that, if I went to Texas, I might get it hot.

I have received to-day a Texas paper containing a short editorial marked
at the four corners in blue pencil. Impossible not to see it. The
editorial abuses me from the first line to the last. When there appears
in a paper an article, or even only a short paragraph, abusing you, you
never run the risk of not seeing it. There always is, somewhere, a kind
friend who will post it to you. He thinks you may be getting a little
conceited, and he forwards the article to you, that you may use it as
wholesome physic. It does him good, and does you no harm.

The article in question begins by charging me with having turned America
and the Americans into ridicule, goes on wondering that the Americans
can receive me so well everywhere, and, after pitching into me right and
left, winds up by warning me that, if I should go to Texas, I might for
a change meet with a hot reception.

A shot, perhaps.

A shot in Texas! No, no, no.

I won't go to Texas. I should strongly object to being shot anywhere,
but especially in Texas, where the event would attract so little public
attention.

[Illustration: "A SHOT IN TEXAS."]

* * * * *

Yet, I should have liked to go to Texas, for was it not from that State
that, after the publication of "Jonathan and His Continent," I received
the two following letters, which I have kept among my treasures?

DEAR SIR:

I have read your book on America and greatly enjoyed it. Please to
send me your autograph. I enclose a ten-cent piece. The postage will
cost you five cents. Don't trouble about the change.

MY DEAR SIR:

I have an album containing the photographs of many well-known people
from Europe as well as from America. I should much like to add yours
to the number. If you will send it to me, I will send you mine and
that of my wife in return.

* * * * *

And I also imagine that there must be in Texas a delightful
primitiveness of manners and good-fellowship.

A friend once related to me the following reminiscence:

I arrived one evening in a little Texas town, and asked for a bedroom
at the hotel.

There was no be