Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show.

A small child, a boy of about four with a delightful mohawk, saw me sunning on a bench on the sidewalk. He asked his father what a cowboy was doing there, and his father, as parents always do when their children attempt to discus anything interesting, denied there being any. The child pointed to me and explained that I, obviously, was a cowboy. I was wearing rolled up brown trousers, a waistcoat with no shirt underneath it, and the brown bowler hat that Parker just bought for me, so, really, his father should have seen that it was entirely my fault. In my defense, it has been quite warm in the city these past few days. I suppose I'll have to be at least slightly more reasonable in the future.

At long last, I've managed to hunt down my favourite thing to drink when I was living in Dublin. I've been doing nothing these past four years but looking for what is in Ireland a cider called Bulmers, and in the States is apparently a cider called Magners. It is less sweet than most of the ciders I've found here, more crisp. Now I need blackcurrant juice, which is used there to flavour it a bit for ladies and fags, and I can spend the next four years doing nothing but drinking. Sobriety has been a complete waste of my time, and I'm done with it.

By the by, I was completely surprised to find that any of you chose to die honourably. chefkatsuya, being unparalleled in manliness, has an excuse. Take as comfort the theory that Queen Zenobia, too, may have starved herself to death on the way to Rome. (Or she may have been pardoned and set up in a villa somewhere, and lived to see her daughters married to Roman senators.) Honour? Really. I hadn't the slightest idea.