"Isn't this," I said, "rather—I mean is it quite suited for a birthday letter, to cheer up Frank in the trenches?"
Mrs. Watt took the suggestion in quite good part, but gave it a decided negative.
"'E would wish respect showed to 'is Aunt Maria, as died Wednesday was a fortnight. You might tell 'im that, if you please, Mum."
I started off, as bidden, with this mournful communication, under the eye, at first severely critical, then frankly admiring, of Bill's grandmother.
"Lor," she exclaimed, "you be one to write the words quick!"
"What shall we say now?" I asked brightly.
"Wednesday was a fortnight as she died, sister Maria did, that's Frank's aunt, and was buried a Saturday—what's too soon, as you'd say, but no disrespect meant, the undertaker arranging first for the Monday—only 'aving a bigger job, with 'orses and plumes, give'im for the Monday, and so putting my pore sister forward to the Saturday. 'Ave you got that down, Mum?"
"Oh," I said, scribbling briskly, "am I to write all that?" It occupied, even with much compression, space far into the second side of the restricted paper.
"An' my only relative surviving," she resumed, "being brother George, as is eighty-two, and crotchety at that, lives out 'Oxton way, so I wrote to him about the funeral for a Monday, and when the undertaker puts it forward to the Saturday I didn't have no one to send all that way, so brother George—'e's eighty-two, and crotchety at that—'e didn't get no notice for the funeral on Saturday at all, so o' course 'e didn't come. You'll make all that clear to Frank, won't you, Mum?"