“I will meet you at the station—and when you are really here I shall begin to live again.
“Au revoir,
Braith”
It seemed as if Gethryn would never get on with his correspondence. He sat and held this letter as he had done the other. A deep melancholy possessed him. He did not care to move. At last, impatiently, he tore the third envelope. It contained a long letter from Clifford.
“My blessed boy,” it said.
“We learn from Papa Braith that you will be here before long, but the old chump won’t tell when. He intends to meet you all alone at the station, and wishes to dispense with a gang and a brass band. We think that’s deuced selfish. You are our prodigal as well as his, and we are considering several plans for getting even with Pa.
“One is to tell you all the news before he has a chance. And I will begin at once.
“Thaxton has gone home, and opened a studio in New York. The Colossus has grown two more inches and hates to hear me mention the freak museums in the Bowery. Carleton is a hubby, and wifey is English and captivating. Rowden told me one day he was going to get married too. When I asked her name he said he didn’t know. Someone with red hair.
“When I remarked that he was a little in that way himself, he said yes, he knew it, and he intended to found a race of that kind, to be known as the Red Rowdens. Elliott’s brindle died, and we sold ours. We now keep two Russian bloodhounds. When you come to my room, knock first, for “Baby” doesn’t like to be startled.
“Braith has kept your family together, in your old studio. The parrot and the raven are two old fiends and will live forever. Mrs Gummidge periodically sheds litters of kittens, to Braith’s indignation. He gives them to the concierge who sells them at a high price, I don’t know for what purpose; I have two of the Gummidge children. The bull pups are pups no longer, but they are beauties and no mistake. All the same, wait until you see “Baby.”
“I met Yvonne in the Louvre last week. I’m glad you are all over that affair, for she’s going to be married, she told me. She looked prettier than ever, and as happy as she was pretty. She was with old Bordier of the Fauvette, and his wife, and—think of this! she’s coming out in Belle Hélène! Well! I’m glad she’s all right, for she was too nice to go the usual way.