Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/101



, Aug. 15, 189— Dear Pierrepont: Perhaps it's just as well that I had to hurry last night to make my train, and so had no time to tell you some things that are laying mighty heavy on my mind this morning.

Jim Donnelly, of the Donnelly Provision Company, came into the office in the afternoon, with a fool grin on his fat face, to tell me that while he appreciated a note which he had just received in one of the firm's envelopes, beginning "Dearest," and containing an invitation to the theatre to-morrow night, it didn't seem to have any real bearing on his claim for shortage on the last carload of sweet pickled hams he had bought from us.

Of course, I sent for Milligan and went for him pretty rough for having a mailing clerk so no-account as to be writing personal letters in office hours, and such a blunderer