Are you an authority on dress? A man got into my carriage on the District to-day wearing a top-hat, a frock-coat, and brown boots. Is that right? I ask it seriously, because the point I want to discover is this: Supposing you suddenly found that you had nothing in the house but brown boots and a frock-coat, would a bowler or a topper be the better way out of it?
You see the idea, Charles. If you add a bowler then the thing you have to explain away is the coat. I don't quite see how that is to be managed; you could only put it down to absent-mindedness. But if you add a topper then you have only the brown boots to account for. This could be done in a variety of ways—a foggy morning, a sudden attack of colour-blindness, or that your mother asked you to wear the thickest ones, dear, and never mind about the silly fashion. It is an interesting point which has never been dealt with properly in the etiquette-books. You and I are agreed upon the topper, it seems.
I went to a play last Tuesday. It was not bad, but the funniest scene happened right at the beginning, when I watched an American buy a seat at the box-office. They gave him J13., and he only discovered it after he had paid for it, and had put his change carefully away. Do you know, Charles, he nearly cried. The manager assured him there was nothing in it; people sat there every night, and were heard of again. It was no good. He got his money back, and went away looking quite miserable. Isn't it childish? I am going to be married on Friday, 13th May, just to show. When is that? Sickening if it's not for years and years. I have a patent calendar somewhere which tells you the date for any year up to 1928. I never know why it should stop there; something to do with the golden number getting too big. It won't go backwards either, which is a pity, because I have always wanted to know on what day of the week I was born. Nobody will tell me. It was one of the lucky days I am sure. How can I find out?
(To-morrow.)—I have just sent you a telegram to say that it was Sir Richard Tressider's body. Strange that you hadn't thought of him. Charles, I felt very shy in the post office. Yes, about Castle Bumpbrook. She didn't believe there was such a place; I offered to bet. We went through the Telegraph Directory together. Do you know, you come in the Castles, not in the Bumps at all. (Put me among the Bumps.) Something ought to be done about it. I always thought Castle was your Christian name, kind of.
Yes, it was Sir Richard's corpse. It occurs to me now that you will get this letter a day after the telegram. How did I put it?
"Body believed to be that of Sir Richard Tressider. Death certified as by drowning. Inspector Stockley suspects foul play."
An elevenpenny touch, Charles, and I never signed it, and you'll wonder what on earth it's all about. Probably you will dismiss it as a joke, and that would be elevenpence thrown away. That cannot be allowed. You can get a telegram repeated at half-price, can't you? I think I shall go and have a fivepenny-ha'penny repeat.
I say, what are you doing about the weather? Are you taking it lying down? I want to sign a petition, or write to my M.P. (haven't got one, then I shall write to yours), humbly showing that it's the rottenest do there's ever been. Do you remember the story (it comes in Gesta Romanorum, or should) of the man who built a model of another man and threw things at it, and the other man sat in a bath with a mirror in his hand and whenever the first man threw he ducked under the water. If he got under in time his enemy missed, and it was all right. Otherwise he was killed. Well, I am going to rig up a Negretti in my room, and throw boots at it, and if the original has to spend all his time in a cold bath ducking, I think, Charles, we shall get some warmer weather soon.
"Oh, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day."
Charles, in your courting days was she ever as cold to you as this?