The embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were all for my unhappy father at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and fortune against untoward chances, returning at night from a day of ill-starred shifts and ventures, to read and perhaps to weep over that last harsh letter from his only child, to which he lacked the courage to reply.
Nearly three months after time, and when my economies were beginning to run low, I received at last a letter with the customary bills of exchange.
"My dearest boy," it ran, "I believe, in the press of anxious business, your letters and even your allowance have been somewhile neglected.

You must try to forgive your poor old dad, for he has had a trying time; and now when it is over, the doctor wants me to take my shotgun and go to the Adirondacks for a change.

You must not fancy I am sick, only over-driven and under the weather.

Many of our foremost operators have gone down: John T.M'Brady skipped to Canada with a trunkful of boodle; Billy Sandwith, Charlie Downs, Joe Kaiser, and many others of our leading men in this city bit the dust.

But Big-Head Dodd has again weathered the blizzard, and I think I have fixed things so that we may be richer than ever before autumn.
"Now I will tell you, my dear, what I propose.