However, it is not lost
for good. I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward. (I stood
near the door when she squeezed out with the throng.) There were other
ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen. I would
gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice.
RILEY-NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT
One of the best men in Washington--or elsewhere--is RILEY, correspondent
of one of the great San Francisco dailies.
Riley is full of humor, and has an unfailing vein of irony, which makes
his conversation to the last degree entertaining (as long as the remarks
are about somebody else). But notwithstanding the possession of these
qualities, which should enable a man to write a happy and an appetizing
letter, Riley's newspaper letters often display a more than earthly
solemnity, and likewise an unimaginative devotion to petrified facts,
which surprise and distress all men who know him in his unofficial
character. He explains this curious thing by saying that his employers
sent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, and that several times
he has come near losing his situation by inserting humorous remarks
which, not being looked for at headquarters, and consequently not
understood, were thought to be dark and bloody speeches intended to
convey signals and warnings to murderous secret societies, or something
of that kind, and so were scratched out with a shiver and a prayer and
cast into the stove.
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