'We'd be there before you could flutter an eyelash.' 'Are you serious?' 'Ain't I, though. It's a thirty-horse--' 'Can't you get them in London?' 'Get 'em in London? Get what in London?' 'Must one go every time all the way to Epsom?' Joey ceased from speech and began to stare. 'Are we not talking about salts?' I inquired hastily, feeling that one of us was off the track. 'Salts?' echoed Joey, his mouth hanging open. 'You mentioned Epsom, surely?' 'Salts?' 'You did say Epsom, didn't you?' 'Salts?' 'Salts,' said I, becoming very distinct in the presence of what looked like deliberate wilfulness. 'What's it got to do with salts?' asked Joey, his underlip of a measureless vacancy. 'Hasn't it got everything?' 'Look here, what are you drivin' at? Is it goin' to be a game?' 'Certainly not. It's Sunday. Did you ever hear of Epsom salts?' 'Oh--ah--I see--Eno, and all that. Castor oil. Rhubarb and magnesia. Well, I'll forgive you as you're only German. Pretty weird, what bits of information you get hold of. Never the right bits, somehow. I'll tell you what, Miss Schmidt--' 'Oh, do.' 'Do what?' 'Tell me what.' 'Well, ain't I goin' to? You all seem to know everything in this house that's not worth knowin', and not a blessed thing that is.' 'Do you include Goethe?' 'Confound Gerty,' said Joey. Such are my conversations with Joey. Is there anything more you want to know? Yours sincerely, ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT. XXXIV Jena, July 3d. Dear Mr. Anstruther,--I am sorry not to have been able to answer your letters for so many weeks, and sorry that you should have been, as you say, uneasy, but my telegram in reply to yours will have explained what has been happening to us. My step-mother died a fortnight ago. Almost immediately after I wrote last to you she began to be very ill. My feelings toward her have undergone a complete upheaval. I cannot speak of her. She is revenging herself, as only the dead in their utter unresentfulness can revenge themselves, for every hard and scoffing thought I had of her in life. I think I told you once about her annuity. Now it is gone Papa and I must see to it that we live on my mother's money alone. It is a hundred pounds a year, so the living will have to be prudent; not so prudent, I hope, but that we shall have everything to enjoy that is worth enjoying, but quite prudent enough to force us to take thought. So we are leaving the flat, grown far too expensive for us, as soon as we can find some other home. We have almost decided on one already. Mr. Collins went to England when the illness grew evidently hopeless, and we shall not take him back again, for my father does not care, at least at present, to have strangers with us, and I myself do not feel as though I could cook for and look after a young man in the way my step-mother did. Not having one will make us poor, but I think we shall be able to manage quite well, for we do not want much.