I scribbled hard again, and said I was doing my best.
"So brother George being crotchety, as I said, Mum, 'e sent me word as 'e wouldn't never speak to me again in this world, and 'e didn't know as ever 'e would in the world to come—I'd like you to put that all in, please, Mum, so's to let Frank know 'ow it all is. Now, do you suppose, Mum, if I was to die, as brother George'd come to my funeral?"
I hardly knew what answer to make after the "cut everlasting" with which George had threatened his sister, but I had an idea that I was beginning to understand Mrs. Watt's tastes. "Well," I said weakly, "I don't know—funerals are very pleasant things."
It was the right note and Mrs. Watt took it up keenly. "That's what I always says, Mum," she said eagerly. "I'd sooner go to a good funeral than I would a wedding any day of the week. You've got that down about brother George? Yes, and please say as it was beautiful polished wood, the coffin—and real brass 'andles."
"But, Mrs. Watt," I said despairingly, "that'll bring us quite to the end of the paper, and we've never even wished him many happy returns yet. Have you another sheet?"
"I haven't got no more than the one sheet, but I dessay as there's room to say as I'm his loving mother, and 'ope it finds 'im well, as it leaves me."
I managed to pinch in the traditional salutation; the sheet was enclosed in an envelope as sepulchral of aspect as itself, and with much misgiving I put Frank's birthday letter into the first pillar-box that I found.
Just a week later I had occasion to go down Paradise Rents again. I had no intention of calling on Mrs. Watt, being more than a little afraid of the reception that her son Frank might have accorded to the letter that was to bring bright cheer to his birthday. But she ran from her door as I passed to meet and greet me. "Do step in, Mum," she entreated. "I must 'ave you see a letter as come this morning from my son Frank, as is at the Front. Read that, if you please, Mum."
"She must be a real lady that wot comes visiting you," it said. "That was a letter as she wrote. I don't know as ever I read such a beautiful letter. All the trench 'as read it, and they says so too."
I sighed heavily with relief. Mrs. Watt was a judge of her son's literary taste.