I ’ve learned a lot from these men I ’ve been associated with. A rough set they would seem to you, most of them--they did to me at first. But when I got to know them, underneath the roughness I found--men. It’s no use trying to put it into a letter. I must talk with you, face to face--and just what that means to me when I think of it I won’t venture to say. I ’ll be home in the fall, and then--I ’m going into my father’s business. I have n’t said that before, have I? You ’ll please not mention it to anyone, except Peter, if you like; I want to surprise father. That’s going to be my reward for doing my duty. It is my duty--I see it plainly at last, and every ounce of determination I can grow from now till fall is going to be just so much more to offer him. But I won’t brag about that. Do the best I can, it won’t be a wonderful gift, for I ’m afraid my talents don’t lie in that direction. But if honest effort can make up--Jane, I have n’t watched some of these heroic chaps for nothing. I ’m simply shamed into taking my medicine, and shutting my mouth tight after it. And that’s the last word about it’s being medicine. I ’m going to get interested in the business if pitching in all over will do it. This is a long letter, and I ’m done--except to tell you that the West does n’t deserve all the credit for my altered views of life. A certain girl I know, who wanted to go to college, but gave up all thought of it because, besides the family, her father and brothers had half a dozen helpless elderly relatives to support, isn’t the poorest sort of inspiration to her friend, when he happens to be a fellow who never gave up anything for anybody in his life. He values her friendship far more than he dares to tell her now. Somebody--Ruskin?--said a knight’s armour never fitted him quite so well as when the lady’s hand had braced it--and I ’m beginning to understand what that rather picturesque metaphor may mean. Do I sound sentimental, and are you laughing at me? Don’t do it! I ’ve not a "gun" in my belt, but I’m rather a rough looking customer nevertheless. I came in an hour ago, wet to the skin--caught out in a cloudburst without my slicker--and while my clothes dry am attired in my cousin’s (seven sizes too big!) being averse to putting on any of the clothes in my trunk, the foolish clothes of civilisation. I weigh one hundred and sixty-five. What do you think of that? And it’s not flesh, but worked-on muscle and sinew. Did I say I was done? I am. But I am also Faithfully your friend, MURRAY TOWNSEND.