rced from the
alligator after his unlucky game of dominoes): "You have known me as
the soul of candor. It is this happy quality which compels me to state
(for I am something of a Rousseau) that if I ever playfully accused
your pretty pet Francine of being a flirt, I knew nothing about it.
The best proof is that she absolutely refused to join her expectations
with mine, though I am something of an Adonis. If you believed that
she and the wine-peddler had made a match, I pity your credulity and
ignorance of human nature. I am certain that neither the peddler nor
myself would touch the enterprise until you had shown exactly what you
would (pecuniarily) do. For my part, I have acted throughout on the
most exact and advanced scientific principles. Intending to modify
the spirit-trade in America, and especially to introduce the exclusive
agency of the Farina essences, I found that the sinew particularly
needed for this leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your bounties
toward Francine, I at first proposed matrimony. This offer was made
without any enmity toward the girl, as my next move was without
affection, though it seems to be resulting to her benefit. I became
her accuser as coolly as I had been her lover. Passion has nothing
to do with the combinations of strategic genius: I am something of a
Washington. My theory of her clandestine marriage was one of the most
masterly fictions of the age--a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I could
have succeeded in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might have
carried it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm with all
your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my plans, owing
to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that I am not
very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am obliged to leave
for your kind attention. The main point of this letter, which M.
Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as distinctly as in my present
feeble state I can, is that Francine is a pretty little maid who has
never passed by Gretna Green. There! that is my _credo_, and I will
subscribe to it,

"Your loving nephew, JOHN.

"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity will prompt,
JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and cosmetical chemist in America
on behalf of the Farinas of Cologne, at New Orleans where I am going
to beat my adversaries like Old HIC--"

At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible.

"This is not a very handsome apology. Di