Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/58

38 Spain and the Cuban insurgents, and he's certain the United States will get mixed up in the row sooner or later. If we do, he says I ought to go as a sailor on a man-o'-war, and I don't know but that I will; for, according to Newell, it's the most glorious life on the face of the earth. Who knows but that I might come out a captain or a commodore, eh?

"I know there is no use in speaking of Uncle Job, for Ben will write about that, and I can't think of the mean old fellow without getting mad clear to my finger-tips. Perhaps that isn't just Christian-like; but really, isn't he the worst that ever was? And to think he was going to have you arrested! He ought to be arrested himself—for breaking up our home, putting all the money in the bank, and making us live as though we were next door to beggars. But never mind; a day of reckoning will come.

"But I must close up now,—the stand, I mean,—and I'll close up the letter, too. Good-by, and take care of yourself, and write often, above all things, for it's mighty lonely being by one's self, isn't it?"

"Dear old Walter, that sounds like him,"