"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!" That is what we are
after. So it is. How ridiculous! Why don't we think of it oftener?
How many of us are free? How many of us are happy? And,
particularly, how many of us would be any happier if we got the
things we want? What foolish wants we have, anyway! Almost
everybody wants something they don't want.

Just then my eye caught sight of the official stenographer
advertised as free. To an economical soul like mine the
opportunity of having a free stenographer for a day and a half was
too good to let slip by. So, placing my chair up alongside of his,
I took from my pocket a letter which I had just received from my
nephew, who had been spending his vacation in the West, and which
I had not known exactly how to answer.

The train of thoughts in which I had indulged, and the peculiarly
vacant condition of my mind, made the time favorable for expansion
upon the theme which had occurred to me; and so I inflicted on the
poor boy a long letter, or sermon, or essay, or whatever you may
please to call it, which I am enclosing to you.

I know that you are interested in topics of this sort, and so send
it along with an apology for the amount of your valuable time
which I am so wilfully wasting.

Your old friend,
JOSH.