I forgot _aussi_ to tell you of the automobile you said you so much envied me. Captain Winston attended to the _douane_, and it is settled for us to keep the car as an "investment." I do not quite know who arranged this, because it was like the baths and the collie, not paid. But some one did arrange, and will be paid of course when we are making profits. I know it was Mr. Storm who said, in the _conseil de guerre_ we had about the hotel, that there must be _at least_ one motor to take guests on tour, and the smarter the car the better. But he could not have been the one to pay as he is the poorest of us all. Oh, I am so glad it is my _duty_ to keep this darling car which was to have been my birthday present from Larry! I shall learn to drive it myself. Captain Winston will teach me. He knows how to drive all cars of every breed. Molly calls him her "Lightning Conductor." I could not wait till the chauffeur arrives. By the way, we have a Russian count and his wife, an Austrian count and his, already all old, here. Mrs. Shuster is thrilled, and says their titles are a "draw." The trouble is the counts quarrel on politics and make snorty sounds at each other, so they have to be kept from colliding. It is I who must do this the most often, and it tears my nerves. My pigeon, I will write again one of these days soon, when I have settled. Now I am still on my head! Your upside down friend, PATRICE. P. S. Larry has read this letter and says it is very bad English--shocking! But I cannot write it all over again. You will see, I shall do better next time. V PETER STORM TO JAMES STRICKLAND, A NEW YORK LAWYER CELEBRATED FOR HIS BRILLIANT DEFENCE OF CERTAIN FAMOUS CRIMINALS _Huntersford, Long Island_, _April Something or Other._ (Why be a slave to dates?) DEAR STRICKLAND: Yours full of reproaches for changing my plans and upsetting yours is "duly to hand," as you'd probably phrase it yourself. What are you _for_, my dear man, except to take trouble off the shoulders of others on to your own? I ask you that! You like it. You thrive on it. With your uncanny talent for character reading, you should never have expected anything of me but the unexpected. And the whole embroglio is your fault, if you come to look at it between the eyes. I ought never to have come back from Siberia four years ago. You hauled me back. What did I do in the West and in the South? You know only too well. Yet here I am again, at your call.