place on the "Enterprise" is worth. If I were not naturally a lazy,
idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me $20,000 a year.
But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account. I lead an easy life,
though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody
knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of
the mountains or the other. And I am proud to say I am the most
conceited ass in the Territory.

You think that picture looks old? Well, I can't help it--in reality I am
not as old as I was when I was eighteen.

I took a desperate cold more than a week ago, and I seduced Wilson (a
Missouri boy, reporter of the Daily Union,) from his labors, and we went
over to Lake Bigler. But I failed to cure my cold. I found the "Lake
House" crowded with the wealth and fashion of Virginia, and I could not
resist the temptation to take a hand in all the fun going. Those
Virginians--men and women both--are a stirring set, and I found if I went
with them on all their eternal excursions, I should bring the consumption
home with me--so I left, day before yesterday, and came back into the
Territory again. A lot of them had purchased a site for a town on the
Lake shore, and they gave me a lot. When you come out, I'll build you a
house on it. The Lake seems more supernaturally beautiful now, than
ever. It is the masterpiece of the Creation.

The hotel here at the Springs is not so much crowded as usual, and I am
having a very comfortable time of it. The hot, white steam puffs up out
of fissures in the earth like the jets that come from a steam-boat's
'scape pipes, and it makes a boiling, surging noise like a steam-boat,
too-hence the name. We put eggs in a handkerchief and dip them in the
springs--they "soft boil" in 2 Minutes, and boil as hard as a rock in