I’ll be danged if I ever seem to do anything right, & between you & me I’ll be derned if I ever do do anything right—intentionally, I mean. But to come down to the solid facts, I made all my plans to stop over with you a day—going. Then I consulted my character, & believed I knew enough of myself to know that if I stopped I shouldn’t go any further. Then I resolved to stop over, returning—but that was all busted up in Chicago., & I couldn’t. There’s millions of reasons, but it ain’t any use to offer them to you, because they wouldn’t have any weight with you. I have noticed that mothers are so unreasonable. It has been the way with all that I’ve ever had, & you are one of the very unreasonablest of the lot. The times I’ve noticed it!

But here comes Livy, & if I don’t drop everything & run to dinner, of course there will be trouble in that quarter, next. You kiss Mollie for me, & pet her up—what is a Mother for but to heal a fellow’s difficulties with—& tell her I’ll be along by & by, sure. And you tell John & Mrs. John Hay not to venture to Washington without coming up here & seeing how bad a cook a body can get here for only three or four dollars a week. They already have my political support—what they need out of me, now, is a moral lift.

Livy has shut down on any further extension of this letter.