"... Do not think I am scolding you—and don't let me worry you either. I am not physically ill. I have only had a shock, and that prevents me from working. A few days ago I wrote you that I supposed I had not heard because the ships were delayed by storm and fog. Well, I waited hopefully. The storm passed, the fogs lifted and the ships came in. No letter. That was the shock, and was horrible. I cabled to the Brunswick, cabled also to the American Express and to Miss F——, and received no reply. My eyes look dreadfully, all blurred and red. I am not ill, but I might just as well be. I don't know when I will have the courage to look in my letter box. You will never know how horrible it is to look in and find it empty. It is as though I had a crack over the head, and a blow in the stomach. But there, little kit-cat, provided you are not hurt or ill no matter about me. Anyway, God willing and God grant it, I will get an answer to this. In cabling say only, "Well, and safe, Mowgy." Don't send it deferred rates, for every hour of waiting is agony. It ought to reach me on the second by noon. If it doesn't? Well, Mowgy, then in that case remember this. Always, whatever you do or omit, I shall love you just the same. Always whatever you do I will forgive it. You are my little world and will be until the end. And just this, my darling: try and write that you forgive me for anything I have done or said which I ought not to. Remember that you are my all and that you can always return to me without thought of censure on my part. My little girl—if I could only stop crying. E."
This incident upset me frightfully. It proved that Mr. Saltus must be in a critical condition mentally, to be imagining such wild and impossible things, and that he needed care. There was still no sign of the war coming to an end, and whether or not a home in England would be advisable under the changed conditions was open to question, for we were suffering acutely, not only for food, but for light, heat and other necessities.
Risking the submarines and the unforeseen, I sailed for the States. Mr. Saltus met me at the dock. Lack of exercise had made him too stout by far, he looked puffy, and every few feet he had to stop, for between the pain in his legs and the flatulence he was in bad shape.
He took me to the Hotel Broztel in East 27th Street, not only because it was only around the corner from his rooms, but because he had ascertained that our dog would be welcome there.
Mr. Saltus' usual method of assuring Toto's reception was an amusing one. Going to the office of the hotel, wherever we happened to be, he would say to the room clerk:—
"I want to know if there is any objection to children?"
He was of course assured that there was none.
"But my child is not like other children," he would say. "She has a fancy for running about in the organism of a dog. That is all there is of dog about her,—the rest is far more human than yourself."
At that stage in the conversation the man at the desk would begin looking around to see if there was a keeper with him, and if help could be obtained quickly. When this uneasiness became apparent, I would stroll up with Toto, who, putting her paws on the desk, woofing and going through her paces, would so intrigue the room clerk that he would forget Mr. Saltus and decide that the crazy owners of such a clever creature could be accommodated.
In connection with hotels and Toto, Mr. Saltus had an original way of putting our names on the register. It savoured of sarcasm and a slap at me in the bargain, but he always insisted that it was neither, and insisted upon the following:—