John is a trump. I like that older boy of yours and suspect he’s got great stuff in him--not that it surprises me. As your boy I should be surprised if he hadn’t. I rather expected, though, that he would say something about his father, talk to me about him in some way, try to get my opinion or something of that sort. But he never opened his mouth on the subject. He’s self-contained without being conceited. He’ll get on well at school. And whatever befalls, when he gets a little older you are going to be able to have real reliance on him. He writes me regularly and seems to like the place and the fellows. I think he inherits your taste for chemistry, and as I’m a chemical engineer he thinks something of me on that account. In fact, when we’re alone together it’s pretty much a case of “talk shop” for me all the time. Not that I mind that! I never knew before how interesting shop talk can be. And if I give him my confidence he won’t withhold his. I wonder, anyway, if a certain relation of friendliness and exchanged confidence and shared confidence doesn’t come rather easier between two people who aren’t joined by ties of blood. It has sometimes struck me, from what I’ve seen of other men and their sons, that the very fact that a man is a boy’s father somehow makes it more difficult for him to come into a real confidential relation with the boy--at times, anyway. For even nowadays the father is more or less an embodiment of Authority, more or less the sovereign, and intimacy with the sovereign is not particularly easy. Since I have no real authority over John he is rather more inclined to listen to my advice and heed it. “If I were you” gets farther, lots of times, than “You must.” Well, I won’t theorize about it; the fact is what matters, and the fact is what gives me immense pleasure and a sort of general gratitude that belongs to you and John and things in general. I wish there were some way of finding out what Guy did after reaching Leith, but from the day when he left the Sailors’ Home there no trace of him appears. I have had the people at the Sailors’ Home questioned but he did not talk about his plans. They remember him there rather distinctly--not his personal appearance but the fact that he seemed to be a man of education and breeding. When he left he took his dunnage with him, which would make it seem probable that he intended to go to sea again. If so he may be on his way home now. I sincerely hope so. I not only hope he’ll come back, but I hope he’ll come back as speedily as possible and in his best estate, physically and mentally and spiritually. Tell me what the girls would most like for Christmas presents. And if there is anything I can get for you on my way East let me know. John and I are planning to spend a day in New York buying some gifts. What would _you_ like? I shall bring along a toy wireless outfit for Guy, Jr.