DEAR UNCLE SEPTIMUS,—You will be pleased to know that I have arranged to stay on with Aunt Verena. Please give my love to Aunt Letitia.—Yours sincerely,
DARLING HAZEL, OLD THING,—Wish me luck because I am starting out on the biggest enterprise of my life. What a pity we are not Roman Catholics and then you could burn candles for me. I am going down to Aunt Verena’s to propose to Clemency Power, that divine Irish girl. I wrote to her last night but I’m such a rotten letter-writer that I’m going down to see her in person and learn my fate. I even tried to get the letter back, but postmen are so rottenly honest. I waited for hours in the rain for the pillar-box to be emptied and offered him two pounds and an old overcoat, but all he did was to threaten to call a policeman. If she accepts me I shall be the luckiest man on earth and there’s nothing I shan’t be able to do. You’ll see. But if she turns me down I don’t know what will happen. I shall probably become a film-actor in broken-hearted stories. Lots of people have said I have the right kind of mobile face for the movies, and really there’s nothing _infra dig_ in it. Clemency is two or three years older than I am, but I think that’s all to the good. What I need is a steadying hand. You will adore her.—Yours ever,
DARLING OLD THING,—It is no good. I am down and out. The whole thing has been a failure. To begin with, I had a hell of a journey, full of hopes and fears alternately. In the taxi at Paddington I felt full of buck and then while waiting for the train to start I knew I was a goner. At Reading I began to have hopes again and at Swindon I wasn’t worth two-pence-halfpenny. At Newport I nearly got out and came back and at Hereford I had a big whisky and soda and was confident once more. But all the way from the station to the house I just sweated.
The very first thing I saw as I came up the drive was Clemency playing tennis with the new Doctor, and my heart sank like a U boat into my socks. I knew in my bones that everything was up; and I was right. Whether or not Clemency is booked, I don’t know, but she won’t have me. She was as nice as she could be, and her voice drove me frantic every time she spoke, but she held out no hope. I expect the sawbones will get her, he’s the kind of quiet, assured, efficient card that a flighty blighter like me would never have a chance against. And he’s nobbled the whole place. Aunt Verena thinks he’s It.