Yours with love,
WILLIAM OSLER.
After getting this letter Uncle Peter began to breathe easier and
two days later he was quite able to resist the desire to crawl
under the bed every time a bottle of soothing syrup arrived from
the drug store.
Uncle Peter got very gay the day after Admiral Togo won the battle
of the Sea of Japan.
Fifteen minutes after the last Russian battleship had been slapped
on the cross-trees Uncle Peter had a letter written to Togo.
I am going to show you a copy of it, if I get pinched in the act:
NEW YORK, This Morning.
To Admiral William Duffy Togo,
the Japanese crackerjack.
Dear Togie:--Please forgive me for writing you these few lines, but
I have been through several wars myself and I have witnessed how
easy it is for a hero to take the wrong road and walk unexpectedly
into the cold storage department of the public's estimation. That
is the reason I wish to give you a few points on the etiquette of
being a hero, which I have studied from observation in this country.
Brave Togie:--When you get home in Tokio or Yokohama, or
Communipaw, or wherever it is, keep the face closed, more
especially in the region of the mouth, because the moment a hero
begins to speak somebody will misconstrue what he says and get him
talking politics when he only meant to say, "Drink hearty!"
Clever Togie:--Don't ever talk with an ambitious reporter unless
you have a baseball mask over the face and a mosquito netting over
the vocabulary; because if you only say to him, "How's the health?"
you will find in the morning paper a column interview, in which you
have decided to run for Mikado on the Democratic ticket.
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