An elevenpenny touch, Charles, and I never signed it, and you'll wonder what on earth it's all about. Probably you will dismiss it as a joke, and that would be elevenpence thrown away. That cannot be allowed. You can get a telegram repeated at half-price, can't you? I think I shall go and have a fivepenny-ha'penny repeat. I say, what are you doing about the weather? Are you taking it lying down? I want to sign a petition, or write to my M.P. (haven't got one, then I shall write to yours), humbly showing that it's the rottenest do there's ever been. Do you remember the story (it comes in Gesta Romanorum, or should) of the man who built a model of another man and threw things at it, and the other man sat in a bath with a mirror in his hand and whenever the first man threw he ducked under the water. If he got under in time his enemy missed, and it was all right. Otherwise he was killed. Well, I am going to rig up a Negretti in my room, and throw boots at it, and if the original has to spend all his time in a cold bath ducking, I _think_, Charles, we shall get some warmer weather soon. "Oh, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day." Charles, in your courting days was she ever as cold to you as this? IV DEAR CHARLES,--Don't talk to me about politics, or the weather, or anything; I have lost my tobacco-pouch. Oh, Charles, what is to be done? It is too sad. I bought it in a little shop at Ambleside, my first, my only friend, on the left-hand side as you go down the hill. It was descended from a brown crocodile in the male line, and a piece of indiarubber in the female; at least, I suppose so, but the man wouldn't say for certain. He called it a trade term. I smoked my first pipe from it--on the top of Scafell Pike, with all England at my feet. The ups and downs it has seen since then--the sweet-smelling briars it has met! In sickness and in sorrow it comforted me; in happiness it kept me calm. Old age came upon it slowly, beautifully. In these later years how many men have looked at it with awe; how many women have insulted it and--stitched its dear sides together! It passed away on a Saturday, Charles; this scion of the larger Reptilia, which sprang into being among the mountain-tops, passed away in a third-class carriage at Dulwich! The irony of it! Even Denmark Hill---- But it matters not now I have lost it. Nor can I bear that another should take its place. Perhaps in a year or two ... I cannot say ... but for the present I make shift with an envelope. Two thoughts sustain me. First, that no strange eye will recognise it as a tobacco-pouch, no strange hand (therefore) dip into it. Secondly, that the Fates, which have taken from me my dearest possession, must needs have some great happiness in store for me.