Confound it! When I had written this I went home to eat, and when I came back I lit a cigar to lie down in the hammock. But it immediately broke down under me and when I went to hammer new nails in, the infamous Derkhiem called me, and now I can’t get away from the office again.

Thank God, I did have my siesta after all. I stole out of the office and took cigars and matches with me and ordered beer; then I went to the upper packing-house loft and lay down in the hammock and swung very gently. Then I went to the middle packing-house loft and packed two cases of platillas, and at the same time I consumed a cigar and a bottle of beer and sweated profusely, for it is so warm today that in spite of barely having got rid of a cold I want to go swimming in the Weser again. The other day I bathed and had a fellow row after me, and thus I swam four times across the Weser in one go, which no one in Bremen will so easily imitate.

Confound it! For two reasons: first, it is raining, second, my amiable young principal [Wilhelm Leupold] simply will not leave the office, and so I must let my cigar go out again. But I will chase him away all right. Do you know how I do it? I go into the kitchen and call out very loud: “Kristine, a cork-screw!” Then I open a bottle of beer and pour out a glass for myself. If then he has but half a groat’s worth of honour in him, he must go out, for that means as much as “Be off, Don Guillermo!”

So you now speak English so splendidly? Just wait, when you come home again I will teach you Danish or Spanish so that you can speak with me in a language the others don’t understand. Danske Sprag fagre Sprag, y el Español es lengua muy hermosa. [Danish is a charming language, and Spanish is a most beautiful language] Or would you prefer Portuguese? O portugues he huma lengoa muito graçosa, e os Portuguezes saõ naçaõ muito respeitavel. [Portuguese is a most graceful language, and the Portuguese are a most respectable nation]

But since you have not yet got so far I will spare you that.

Here you can see my hammock, containing myself smoking a cigar.

I have just heard that another 500 cases of sugar, that is, 250,000 lbs., have been sold. That can sweeten many a cup of coffee. Who knows whether the sugar in your cup won’t come from the same case from which I had to take samples! But all your sugar on the Rhine comes from Holland, where it is made from lumps, lumps of sugar, not of cotton-rag.

Soon there will be big manoeuvres in Falkenberg, 3 hours from here, where the Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and Oldenburg troops, a whole regiment all together, will show their tricks. They are poor, pathetic things, three of them together have not as much moustache as I have when I have not had a shave for three days; one can count every thread in their coats and they have no sabres, but Speckääle. A Speckaal is a smoked eel, but in soldiers’ language it is a leather scabbard for the bayonet which they carry instead of a sabre. For if they put the bayonet on the end of the rifle, these poor creatures would be very likely to run each other through the mug with it when they were marching, so they are sensible enough to carry it on their backs. They are miserable fellows, Kashubs and Ledshaks.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire