But your darned old dreamy & beautiful Japan is surely the Land of Dead Issues. I don’t remember any such book as the Bread-Winners. Why yes I do, come to think—but it was long, long ago, but & many things have happened since that old time, & have sponged its interest out; & it & all concerning it have become formless dimnesses in the memory. It seems aeons ago that there was some dispute as to who wrote the book; but before it was decided there came cyclones, & earthquakes, & deluges, moral, political, financial & physical; & instantly the question became a Dead Issue; since which time no man has thought of that dispute, or cared to know how it was settled or whether it was ever settled or not. Gott im Himmel! I would delight to live in Japan; for my idea of heaven itself is a place where all the issues are dead ones, & no man, not even the angels, cares a damn.

There is a live issue here, but it will be no longer alive wh by the time this reaches Japan. It is this: whether Twichell & I will beat the bicycle, or whether the bicycle will beat us. We have fought the creature a couple of weeks, now, & we have honorable wounds to show for it. This morning we traveled a couple of miles, mainly up hill,—& made it derned uncomfortable for the wagons; for they never could tell just which way we were proposing to steer—& neither could we.

The children are perfectly delighted with the catagraphs, & so are the rest of us—though they bring a pang to my heart, reminding me that after years of longing, I still am catless & forlorn.