This comic postcard was illustrated by D. Hillson – who was introduced in earlier postcard stories.

Copyright in 1907, the illustration shows a yawning figure holding a tilting candle.

Mark mailed the postcard from Kansas to Miss Josie Hill in Denver.

It seems that Miss Josie Hill did not have a settled address, her mail was “General Delivery” and held at the post office.

Perhaps Josie had recently arrived in Denver and was still looking for permanent accommodations.

One may forget that towns and cities had few “apartments” – one rented rooms at a boarding house, which was often a private home with an extra bedroom.

There are two mysterious elements about this postcard.

First, I cannot decipher any arrangement of letters visible in the postmark that corresponds to a post office in Kansas in 1908.

We don’t know where the sleepy Mark posted his excuse for not writing.

Secondly, the post office has stamped an OUT date on the reverse of the postcard – one month from the arrival of the postcard in Denver.

It seems reasonable that, if no one called for mail, the mail was discarded at some time and that the stamp indicated the date the postcard would be tossed.

Nevertheless, we cannot be sure when Josie received Mark’s message.

One hopes that Josie accepted Mark’s excuse for not writing a letter and was glad to hear from him.

It is pleasing to assume that Josie thrived in Denver and that she and Mark remained friends for many years.