But not on my part—never. In common tweeds, to be mistaken for one of those splendid frock-coated gentleman, and admitted into a lady's confidence on a question of jerseys, there was glory for you. I doubt now if I ought to have gone down to Castle Bumpbrook. Anyhow, I should have insisted on all the gate.
What was the gate? I distinctly saw three small boys hiding behind a cow. I suppose they paid all right? Charles, I did enjoy it awfully, as I think I have told you several times. It was good of you to send me in first with the postman, and as a post-man I am sure I should love him very much, but he is too fast for me on the cricket-field. There wasn't a run there, you know—a simple shot straight to cover. I expect he thought it was an express delivery or late fee stroke, with "Immediate" in the top left-hand corner; or perhaps the brown pad made him think I was a telegram. If I ever go in first with him again I shall register myself.
I gather that the vicar has to bowl at one end all the time, hasn't he? In lieu of tithes or something. Otherwise you get the Ecclesiastical Commissioners down on you. He varies his pitch cleverly, I admit. His firstly would take any batsman by surprise; I can't think why it only bounces once—finger-spin, I suppose. Then, immediately afterwards, you get his secondly, a high full pitch which would almost be a wide in a layman. Yet all the time you feel that he is only leading up to his sixthly and lastly, my brethren, which is one of the subtlest half-volleys I have ever seen.
Charles, I love your garden. It was jolly to see the white flower of Mrs Sinkins' blameless life again. I knew Mrs Sinkins as a bulb—I mean as a boy, and have always regarded her with affection. I suppose I shall have to wait for Dorothy Perkins. She is hardly out yet. My love is like a—— Oh, but Dorothy is pink. Anyhow, she sweetly smiles in June, and it's just on June, so I'm blowed if I don't come down to see her next month, whether you ask me or not. Better send me an invitation for form's sake.
And teach me about flowers, will you? (And I will tell you about motor omnibuses.) Why do they all end in "kins"? It can't be a coincidence that the only two which I know to talk to should do this. Funnily enough, motor omnibuses all end in Putney, which shows that this is a very small world after all, and we needs must love the highest when we see it. So near and yet so far. Doesn't it annoy you when you meet a person in London whom you last saw in Uganda, and he fatuously observes that the world is a very small place? It would have been a much smaller place, prima facie, if you had last seen him at Leamington.
To return to Dorothy; we have flowers in London, too. What about the Temple Show? I saw a man there with a kodak; I suppose he wanted to snap the roses as they were growing. That's the sort of weather we are on the Embankment! Oh, but the fruit there! I wish I were a prize tomato; what a complexion!