ts 057]

I told him he looked like a corpse, which encouraged him so he almost
fainted. He asked me if I had heard of any contagious diseases that were
prevalent in Virginia, 'cause he felt as though he had caught something.
I told him I would ask the conductor, so I went and asked the conductor
what time we got to Washington, and then I went back to dad and told
him the conductor said there was no disease of any particular account,
except smallpox and yellow fever, and that the first symptom of smallpox
was a prickling sensation in the small of the back.

Dad turned green and said he had got it all right, and I had the
darndest time getting him back to the hotel at Washington. Say, I had to
help him undress, and I took the horse chestnut and put it in the foot
of the bed, and got dad in, and I went downstairs to see a doctor, and
then I came back and told him the doctor said if the prickly sensation
went to his feet he was in no danger from smallpox, as it was an
evidence that an old vaccination of years ago had got in its work and
knocked the disease out of his system lengthwise, and when I told dad
that he raised up in bed and said he was saved, for ever since I went
out of the room he had felt that same dreaded prickling at work on his
feet, and he was all right.

I told dad it was a narrow escape and that it ought to be a warning
to him. Dad has to wear a dress suit to dinner here and cough up money
every time he turns around, 'cause I have told the bell boys dad is a
bonanza copper king, and they are not doing a thing to dad.

O, I guess I am doing just as the doctors at home ordered, in keeping
dad's mind occupied.

Well, so long, old man, I have got to go to dinner with dad, and I am
going to order the dinner myself, dad said I could, and if I don't put
him into bankruptcy, you don't know your little

Hennery.

CHAPTER V.

The Bad Boy and His Dad Have Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria--
The Bad Boy Orders Dinner--The Old Man Gets Stuck--Tries to
Rescue a Countess in Distress.

Waldorf-Astoria, New York.--Dear Uncle Ezra: We are still at this
tavern, but we don't do anything but sleep here, and stay around in
the lobby evenings to let people look at us, and dad wears that old
swallow-tail coat he had before the war, but he has got a new silk hat,
since we got here; one of these shiny ones that is so slick it makes his
clothes look offul bum. We about went broke on the first supper we