Do you grow oranges at Castle? (Forgive the familiarity.) Exhausted by my divings into the remote and wicked past, I have just eaten about six. I get through quite a dozen a day. The fact is I heard a doctor say the other night that they were extremely good for the complexion--or else extremely bad, I couldn't quite catch which. He spoke very indistinctly. It was a pity that I missed what seems to have been the important word; it wouldn't have mattered so much about the "extremely." However, I go on eating them, and if one day you turn up in town and find me a full-blown mulatto, you will know that the word was "bad." I shall become a sort of test case, like "Wreford _v._ Partington (1883)." Eminent people will refer to me. How nice to be referred to--not that it would be the first time. "Refer to drawer," I remember on my cheques at Cambridge. That, sir, was me. Do you know, I made up the names Wreford and Partington on the spur of the moment. The names are simple enough, but I think the combination is wonderful. There must have been such a case in 1883. Who do you think Wreford was? I fancy he was a small chandler, and he fell down the coal shoot of Partington's in Cannon Street. James Partington, the senior partner, said (fairly enough) that a great firm like his, which had branches all over England (including Norwich), must have coal some time, if they were to cope successfully with increasing foreign competition, which, owing to the present Gov---- Oh no, this was 1883; I forgot. Well, anyhow, he said they must have coal. Wreford retorted that he didn't mind their putting coal down their shoot, but when it came to including respectable citizens of London---- You remember the excitement when the case came on? We were only babies then, but I have a recollection that my nurse was a pro-Partington. Wreford won, but as he was heavily fined for having knowingly caused a crowd to collect it did him little good, poor man. Good-bye. Write to me soon and tell me all about Castle Bumpbrook. What a glorious name. I often say it to myself. It is the only strong language I ever use now. II DEAR CHARLES,--Many thanks for your definition of a solstice. Is it really? Fancy! By answering one of my questions you become a unique correspondent. Nobody else answers questions in a letter. Sometimes, of course, one is asked, "What train are you coming down by on Saturday? Let me know at once." But the proper thing to do in such a case is to wait till Saturday afternoon, and then wire "Just missed the two twenty-two. Hope to catch the next." Questions in letters are mostly rhetorical; which is why I ask you, How, oh, how could you have the nerve to head your paper "Castle Bumpbrook," and fill it with arguments against the Budget? It is hardly decent. You know, I doubt if you ought even to have heard of the Budget at Castle Bumpbrook.