The Abysmal Brute

Sam Stubener ran through his mail carelessly and rapidly. As became a managerof prize-fighters, he was accustomed to a various and bizarre correspondence.Every crank, sport, near sport, and reformer seemed to have ideas to impart tohim. From dire threats against his life to milder threats, such as pushing in thefront of his face, from rabbit-foot fetishes to lucky horse-shoes, from dinkyjerkwater bids to the quarter-of-a-million-dollar offers of irresponsible nobodies,he knew the whole run of the surprise portion of his mail. In his time havingreceived a razor-strop made from the skin of a lynched negro, and a finger,withered and sun-dried, cut from the body of a white man found in Death Valley,he was of the opinion that never again would the postman bring him anythingthat could startle him. But this morning he opened a letter that he read a secondtime, put away in his pocket, and took out for a third reading. It was postmarkedfrom some unheard-of post-office in Siskiyou County, and it ran:Dear Sam.