Aggie.'
Antony read the letter three times, lit a cigar, and sat down on his back-steps to smoke it while he glanced dreamily away over the blue sea. Then on the leaves of his note-book he wrote:
'Think over it, eh, Aggie? Well, I do, dear sissy. Gustie can stand for fifty counties if he likes, and for anything Frank Antony cares. I dare say if Gustie gets in—and he is fool enough to be in Parliament—it will be father's money that will put him there.
'I am sitting in my caravan, Aggie, or, rather, on the back-steps, in true Romany rye fashion, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted thingummy. Out yonder is the blue sea, dear, only it is green to-day, with white foam-flakes here and there, for a glorious spanking breeze is blowing. But there isn't a sail to spank, Aggie. And that sea is just like your brother's mind at present—vacant, a glorious green vacuum. I know, sister mine, that nature abhors a vacuum. By the way, isn't vacuum the Latin for a cow? Alas! I fear that sending your big brother to Edinburgh University was throwing money away. But why should nature abhor a cow? Oh, now I remember, vacca is the cow. But where was I? Oh yes. I've made up my mind, Aggie, never to be one of the six hundred jackasses who bray in Parliament. I have come to the belief that the only thing in life that I am cut out for is to do nothing, and to do it well. I hope the old dad won't take on about this when I tell him; though I am in no hurry to let him know. Don't you go and marry that born idiot of a Gustie, else I'll forthwith marry the charming, fat Widow Pendlebury, whom I told you about in my last. By the way, she is not a widow yet, but Skeleton doesn't look as though he would last for another generation. He is as thin as a bean-pole or a billiard-cue.
'I know you are dying to know the secret of the mermaid, or rather merman; but I am as far from finding that out as ever, and lately have taken to believing that it is a real creature. And you would never believe how horrible it looks, Aggie.
'I told you about Lottie Lee so often. Dear, sweet thing! I have had a lovely new boat built for her which her brute of a father was coolly going to annex. He is cruel to the child, Aggie, and I fear that if he lays a finger on her again I'll thrash him within an inch of his life.
'Heigh-ho! but I do wonder what Lotty's mother was like—a real lady undoubtedly; though how she could have mated with Biffins is a puzzle.
'Going to travel in my "Gipsy Queen." Going to ask Biffins to let Mary and Lottie come with me—it will be but for a few weeks—in their "Silver Queen," to cook my meals and look after me, and of course the dog Wallace will come also. A winter's cruise in a caravan! Isn't there a delightful ring about it, Aggie, and what possibilities may the road at this wild season of the year not have in store for us!'
Frank tore the leaves of the note-book containing the above right out, and just posted them, gipsy fashion, to Aggie as they were.