[III]
IN WHICH A HAT FLOATS DOWN STREAM
"And so my boy has taken up his abode with our friend, the poet," wrote the colonel to me. "Do you know, I fancy it will be good for both of them. I have long felt that our poet was getting too solitary and remote—too self-centred, shall I say?
"And yet I have, too, some misgivings as to his power of controlling Tommy—although my faith in Mrs. Chundle is profound.
"Tommy, as you know, is not perhaps quite so strong as he might be, and needs careful watching—changing clothes and so on. You recollect his sudden and quite severe illness just after the Chantrey's garden party last year."
I laid down the letter and smiled, for I had wondered at the time at Tommy's survival, so appalling had been his powers of absorption.
"Poor colonel," I reflected. "He is too ridiculously wrapped up in the young rascal, for anything."
The letter ran on:
"Spare no expense as to his keep and the supplying of his reasonable wishes, but do not let him know, at any rate for the present, that he is heir to Camslove—I think he does not realise it yet—and for a while it is better he should not.