September and explore the Mercator property.

Do you know, Hal, I have been thinking lately that you and I
stick too close to the grind. Business is right enough, but
what's the use of spending one's best years succeeding in
everything except the things that are worth while? I'll be thirty
sooner than I care to say, and--oh, well, you won't understand.
You'll sit down there, with the Southern Cross and the rest of
the infernal astronomical galaxy looking down on you, and the
Indians chanting in the village, and you will think I have grown
sentimental. I have not. You and I down there have been looking
at the world through the reverse end of the glass. It's a bully
old world, Hal, and this is God's part of it.

Burn this letter after you read it; I suspect it is covered with
germs. Well, happy days, old man.

Yours, Tom

P.S. By the way, can't you spare some of the Indian pottery you
picked up at Callao? I told Mrs. Wilson about it, and she was
immensely interested. Send it to this address. Can you get it to
the next steamer?--T.

FROM MAXWELL REED TO RICHARD BURTON BAGLEY, UNIVERSITY CLUB, NEW
YORK.

Dear Dick:

Enclosed find my check for five hundred, as per wager. Possibly