DEAR AUNT,—As you know, there is great need of a revival in all kinds of home industries if we are to regain, or rather to hold, our place among the nations, and I am far too keen a political economist not to be giving much thought to the matter. What I am at the moment most interested in is the carpet manufacture. I have heard of a firm in the West of England which merely needs a little more capital to do the most astonishing things, and I wonder if you would advance me a thousand or so to invest in it. I ask as a loan—no speculation at all. One of the reasons why I have a leaning towards this industry—apart from the fact that carpets must always be needed—is that the other day when I was in the South Kensington Museum, looking about for inspiration, I noticed an ancient rug, hanging on the wall, which represented a map. It at once struck me that it would be a first-class notion to make map carpets for sale in this country. Think of the enormous success that a carpet-map of the Western Front would have been during the late War. Conversation need never have faltered, and if you had a real soldier to tea or dinner he could have made his story extraordinarily vivid by walking about the room and illustrating the various positions. Or take a carpet-map of Ireland—how that would help in our understanding of the Irish question! In nurseries too, the carpet could teach geography. Children crawling over it from one country to another could get a most astonishing notion of boundaries and so forth. The more I think of the scheme, the more I am taken by it; and I hope, dear Aunt, that you will see eye to eye with me. Trusting that you are progressing favourably towards a complete recovery—I am, your affectionate nephew, HORACE MUN-BROWN _P.S._—I never see Hazel now, but still live in hopes. XCI VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN MY DEAR FRIEND AND PHILOSOPHER,—How wise you are! On paper. When I meet you and see your dear old face I know you are capable of quite as many incautious impulses as most of us; but when I read your cool counsels and generalizations you seem to assume a white beard of immense proportions and to be superior to all human temptations or foibles.