Whiter than his rumpled bed, but freshened and brightened and
deceptively free from pain, he woke at last to find the pleasant
yellow sunshine mottling his dingy carpet like a tortoise-shell cat.
Instinctively with his first yawny return to consciousness he reached
back under his pillow for Cornelia's letter.

Out of the stiff envelope fluttered instead the tiny circular to which
Cornelia had referred so scathingly.

It was a dainty bit of gray Japanese tissue with the crimson-inked
text glowing gaily across it. Something in the whole color scheme and
the riotously quirky typography suggested at once the audaciously
original work of some young art student who was fairly splashing her
way along the road to financial independence, if not to fame. And this
is what the little circular said, flushing redder and redder and
redder with each ingenuous statement:

THE SERIAL-LETTER COMPANY.

Comfort and entertainment Furnished for Invalids, Travelers,
and all Lonely People.

Real Letters

from

Imaginary Persons.

Reliable as your Daily Paper. Fanciful as your Favorite