“For example,” he said, “it’s impossible to get some of them to go to the strong room at all, because they say there is a horrible little Hindoo squatting there and scrabbling on the floor.” There is no news and here is the poem. You must recover very quickly now, under the Paragon’s treatment, because the supply of verses is running short:— Oh, Cynicism, let them bleat and sigh, Their own hearts hard, belike, and chill as stone; Give me the soul that’s tinged with irony, For then I know that it has felt and known. CLI PATRICIA POWER TO HER SISTER CLEMENCY DEAREST CLEM,—We have had a visit from your young friend, who is a great lark. He is coming again. Indeed I believe that if Herself had asked him to stay he would be here for ever. He thinks there is no country like Ireland and no part of it like Kerry; which is true enough. We are very much obliged to you, I’m sure, for sending a male thing to this nunnery. Herself wants to know if readers to invalid ladies never get a week’s holiday. She pretends to want to see you. Mr. Barrance says that he doubts if you can get away before her regular doctor returns. Don’t forget us.—Your devoted PAT CLII RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY DEAR VERENA, one final word about your money. I have, I think, a really good suggestion at last; at any rate it is one which I myself, in your position, should follow. Not only as a valuable gift, but as a well merited stroke of criticism, it would be a fine thing if you were to leave the money to the Prime Minister of the day, not for his own use but to increase the paltry £1200 which is all the money for new Civil List pensions that this great nation can find every year. Every year the number of claimants for its miserable little doles is far in excess of those that can be helped, and the help is therefore of the most meagre, and often, I should guess, useless kind. A pension of £50 a year to the widow of this eminent but unfortunate man, £70 to the daughter of that, and so forth—always “In consideration of his distinguished services to Science, Literature, Art or to his country” and of “the necessitous circumstances” of those whom he has left behind. If some of these fifties could be turned into hundreds it would be an act of benevolence indeed. What do you say? Alms-houses are excellent, but somehow I feel that this is better. Little Mrs. Peters amused me yesterday with one of her remarks. Speaking of the impending visit of her sister-in-law, she said, “I want to give her a decent lunch but I don’t want to appear well off. Don’t you think an old partridge stewed is the thing?” Here is the poem:— We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, And I should hint sharp practice if I dared; For was not she beforehand sure to gain Who made the sunshine we together shared?