It ran like this: DEAR FATHER: Mr.Chipperton has told me about your suing him.

If he really has set his house over on four inches of your lot, I wish you would let it stand there.

I don't care much for him, but he has a nice wife and a pleasant girl, and if you go on suing him the whole lot of them will leave here to-morrow, and they're about the only people I know, except Gordon.

If you want to, you can take a foot off any one of my three lots, and that ought to make it all right.
Your affectionate son, SAMUEL COLBERT.
"Have you three lots ?" I asked, a good deal surprised, for I didn't know that Rectus was a property-owner.
"Yes," said he; "my grandmother left them to me." "Are they right next to your father's lot, which Chipperton cut into ?" "No, they're nowhere near it," said Rectus.
I burst out laughing.
"That letter wont do any good," I said.
"You'll see," said Rectus, and he went off to mail it.
I don't know what kind of a business man Mr.Chipperton was, but when Rectus told him that he had written a letter to his father which would make the thing all right, he was perfectly satisfied; and the next day we all went out in a sail-boat to the coral-reef, and had a splendid time, and the "Tigress" went off without any Chippertons.

I think Mr.
Chipperton put the whole thing down as the result of his lecture to Rectus up in the silk-cotton tree..