MY DEAR AUNT,—I had anticipated your objection to the marriage of first-cousins, which is one of your arguments against my courtship of Hazel. An acquaintance of mine who is connected with a statistical laboratory has long been making enquiries into the whole matter of consanguinity, and the results are surprising. The children of first-cousins are by no means doomed to imbecility or decadence. But even if they were that should not necessarily deter me, for the union of Hazel and myself might prove to be childless, although none the less happy for that, and it would be grievous and tragic to permit a superstition to keep us sundered. But I am letting the whole matter rest for a while and endeavouring to soothe my fever by concentrating once again on financial schemes. For without money I have no home to offer any wife. You will remember my project, in which I still believe implicitly, for establishing a Cinema in the City? Well, it has fallen through. The reply from the only churchwarden who has been polite enough to answer my very courteous letter is unsatisfactory. He displays an antiquated reluctance to come into line with the march of progress. And as the price of ordinary building land in the neighbourhood of Cheapside is prohibitive I must reluctantly abandon the notion either as unripe or as unsuited to my hands. But I am sure I was on the right track. I now have a new and more practical scheme to unfold. While walking down the Strand yesterday I made a curious discovery in which I am sure you will be interested. I noticed that in the whole street there is no shop devoted to woman’s dress—not even a milliner’s. Considering that the Strand is always too full of people of both sexes and that it is largely a pleasure street—I mean that the people have time to look about and money to spend—this is a very strange thing and I am sure there would be big profits in remedying it. My idea is to find the capital for an emporium to be established somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Beaver Hut, where men and women are passing the whole time; visitors to London—staying at the Savoy and other great hotels—many of them very wealthy Americans;—people arriving at Charing Cross from Kent (one of the richest counties); and so on. How natural for the men to wish to give the women something pretty to wear!—to say nothing of the women’s own constant desire for new clothes and hats. All that is needed is a certain amount of capital to build and stock with, and the services of a first-class man from one of the big Oxford Street places to act as manager. If you are sufficiently interested in the scheme to invest in it, please let me know the amount. I hope you are better. I have one of my bad attacks of nasal catarrh.—Yours sincerely, HORACE MUN-BROWN LI ROY BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY