he would
split hisself, and a fellow went up and threw his arms around dad, and
began to weep, and the tears came in dad's eyes, and another fellow
pinched dad's watch, and the celebration closed with everybody getting
drunk, and the queen sailed away. Say, we are going to Spain, on the
next boat, and you watch the papers. We will probably be hung for taking
Cuba and the Phillipines.

Yours,

Hennery.

[Illustration: Sang so loud you would think he would split hisself 333]

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Bad Boy Writes of Spain--They Call on the King And the
Bad Boy is at it Once More--They See a Bull Fight and Dad
Does a Turn.

Madrid, Spain.--My Dear Uncle: You probably think we are taking our
lives in our hands by coming to Spain, so soon after the Cuban war, in
which President Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill, in the face of over
thirty bloodthirsty Spaniards, and captured the blockhouse on the
summit of the hill, which was about as big as a switchman's shanty, and
wouldn't hold two platoons of infantry, of twelve men to the platoon,
without crowding, and which closed the war, after the navy had
everlastingly paralyzed the Spanish vessels, and sunk them in wet water,
and picked up the crews and run them through clothes-wringers to dry
them out; but we are as safe here as we would be on South Clark street,
in Chicago. Do you know, when I read of that charge of our troops up San
Juan hill, headed by our peerless bear-hunter, I thought it was like the
battle of Gettysburg, where hundreds of thousands of men fought on each
side, and I classed Roosevelt with Grant, Sheridan, Sherman, Meade and
Thomas, and all that crowd, but one day I got talking with a veteran of
the Spanish-American war, who promptly deserted after every pay day, and
re-enlisted after he had spent his money, and he didn't do a thing to my
ideas of the importance of that battle. He told me it was only a
little skirmish, like driving in a picket post, and that there were not
Spaniards enough there to have a roll call, not so many Spanish soldiers
as there were American newspaper correspondents on our side, that only a
few were killed and wounded, and that a dozen soldiers in an army wagon
could have driven up San Juan hill with firecrackers and scared the
Spaniards out of the country, and that a part of a negro regiment did
pretty near all the shooting, while our officers did the yelling, and
had their pictures taken, caught in the a