Still, there is a detail or two connected with this matter which ought
perhaps to be mentioned. And now, having smoothed the way with the
compliment, I will venture them. The head corpse in the York Harbor
office sent me that telegram altho (1) he knew it would reach me too late
to be of any value; (2) also, that he was going to send it to me by his
boy; (3) that the boy would not take the trolley and come the 2 miles in
12 minutes, but would walk; (4) that he would be two hours and a quarter
on the road; (5) and that he would collect 25 cents for transportation,
for a telegram which the he knew to be worthless before he started it.
From these data I infer that the Western Union owes me 75 cents; that is
to say, the amount paid for combined wire and land transportation
--a recoup provided for in the printed paragraph which heads the
telegraph-blank.

By these humane and Christian stages we now arrive at the complaint
proper. We have had a grave case of illness in the family, and a
relative was coming some six hundred miles to help in the sick-room
during the convalescing period. It was an anxious time, of course,
and I wrote and asked to be notified as to the hour of the expected
arrival of this relative in Boston or in York Harbor. Being afraid of
the telegraph--which I think ought not to be used in times of hurry and
emergency--I asked that the desired message be brought to me by some
swift method of transportation. By the milkman, if he was coming this
way. But there are always people who think they know more than you do,
especially young people; so of course the young fellow in charge of this
lady used the telegraph. And at Boston, of all places! Except York
Harbor.

The result was as usual; let me employ a statelier and exacter term, and
say, historical.