I do, indeed, and you may mention the fact in the advertisements.


_From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago,
March 7, 1878._

All goes well. I get hundreds of orders. We shall do a roaring trade as
"The New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company." But you have not
told me whether the ice is fresh or salt. If it is fresh it won't do for
cooking, and if it is salt it will spoil the mint juleps.

Is it as cold in the middle as the outside cuts are?


_From Mr. Jebez Hope, from Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans,
April 3, 1878._

Navigation on the Lakes is now open, and ships are thick as ducks. I'm
afloat, _en route_ for Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans and
Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket. We are busted out,
my poor Pikey--we are to fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meeting
of the creditors and don't attend.

Last night a schooner from Milwaukee was smashed into match-wood on an
enormous mass of floating ice--the first berg ever seen in these waters.
It is described by the survivors as being about as big as the Capital at
Washington. One-half of that iceberg belongs to you, Pikey.

The melancholy fact is, I built our warehouse on an unfavorable site,
about a mile out from the shore (on the ice, you understand), and when