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Age not guaranteed---Some I have told $or 20 years'--Some Leg

The Bed Bug Letter

I have told this story for at least thirty years, but have never printed it before. I consider it the very best letter story in history; and many of the best stories in history have been letter stories. This is it:

A high-toned business executive was returning home in a Pullman sleeping car, and, as he was getting up in the morning, he discovered to his horror, a bed bug in his berth. Enraged he went to his office, and as first order of business he dictated a letter to the Pullman Company that fairly burned the paper on which his secretary typed it' His indignation knew no bounds,'so he just took the wrapper entirely off of his vocabulary of invectives in statin-g iis opinion of train beds that had bed bugs in them' It was trhe meanest, dirtiest letter he had ever written, but he seemed to think it justified.

A few days passed, and here came a reply' It was on Ptrlhnan Company stationery, and was signed by the executive vice president of the company. It was as delightful, as courteous, as gentlemanly a letter as he had ever read, the writer making no efiort to stoop to the level of his critic by employing vitriolic writing' The letter said that the Pullrnan Company spent millions of dollars annually to keep its beds clean. That no effort was too great or too expensive in their routine of keeping their berths that way. But that no effort is one hundred per cent per-

New Plywood Plcrnt and Sqwmill To Be Built At Cloverdcrle

Announcement has been made that a plywood plant and lumber mill will be built at Cloverdale, Calif' The new organiz'ation has purchased timber on the Garcia River' ihe principals are: Henry Crowfoot, Harry Murphy' Frank Teliston, and W' E' Difford' fect, and sometimes at the rarest intervals, some traveler with vermin in his luggage got into one of their beds, and left bugs behind him. It would not happen once in a million rides. You could travel the rest of your life, and it would never happen again. But it had happened this tlme, and all the Company could do was express its deep regret and complete humiliation, and hope that the gentleman would understand, and forgive this one sad accident.

The complaining gentleman was completely disarmed. Herc he had sent them a lousy, insulting, ungentlemanly letter, and in reply the high vice president himself had replied, explained and apologized. He was flabbergasted, and told his secretary so. He had acted like a complete boor. he said, and the Pullman Company had fairly showed him up by their cou,rteous handling of the situation. He would sit down right then, he said, and write a note of apology for his insulting letter. But just then in handling the Company letter, he discovered that it was double. Investigating, he found it was two letters stuck together, his own insulting letter being on the bottom, and having, in some v/ay, become stuck to the Company reply. So, curiously he pulled them apart. And there, across the face of his letter he saw written in a heavy black pencil the following instructions:

Only Philippine Hcrdwood Shipment

The 500,000 ft. shipment of Philippine Mahogany purchased by Forsyth Flardwood Co., San Francisco, the only cargo of hardwoods to escape the embargo of the Philippine Government, has been tied up in Los Angeles harbor awaiting the end of the shipping strike, when it will be delivered at San Francisco.

We ore now mqking our spqce reservotions for our regulor sdvertising rqres oppry -one-time rores ore as follows: our qdvertising deportment wiil moke up q suggestion for your od or ossist you with copy.