The Holiday Round Part 55

"MY DEAR UNCLE I thot you wher coming to see me to night but you didn't why didn't you baby has p t o hurt her knee isnt that a pity I have some new toys isnt that jolly we didn't have our five minutes so will you krite to me and tell me all about p t o your work from your loving little MARGIE."

I always think that footnotes to a letter are a mistake, but there are one or two things I should like to explain.

(A) Just as some journalists feel that without the word "economic" a leading article lacks tone, so Margery feels, and I agree with her, that a certain cachet is lent to a letter by a p.t.o. at the bottom of each page.

(B) There are lots of grown-up people who think that "write" is spelt "rite." Margery knows that this is not so. She knows that there is a silent letter in front of the "r," which doesn't do anything but likes to be there. Obviously, if n.o.body is going to take any notice of this extra letter, it doesn't much matter what it is. Margery happened to want to make a "k" just then; at a pinch it could be as silent as a "w." You will please, therefore, regard the "k" in "krite" as absolutely noiseless.

(C) Both Margery and Bernard Shaw prefer to leave out the apostrophe in writing such words as "isn't" and "don't."

(D) Years ago I claimed the privilege to monopolise, on the occasional evenings when I was there, Margery's last ten minutes before she goes back to some heaven of her own each night. This privilege was granted; it being felt, no doubt, that she owed me some compensation for my early secretarial work on her behalf. We used to spend the ten minutes in listening to my telling a fairy story, always the same one. One day the authorities stepped in and announced that in future the ten minutes would be reduced to five.

The procedure seemed to me absolutely illegal (and I should like to bring a test action against somebody), but it certainly did put the lid on my fairy story, of which I was getting more than a little tired.

"Tell me about Beauty and the Beast," said Margery as usual that evening.

"There's not time," I said. "We've only five minutes to-night."

"Oh! Then tell me all the work you've done to-day."

(A little unkind, you'll agree, but you know what relations are.)

And so now I have to cram the record of my day's work into five breathless minutes. You will understand what bare justice I can do to it in the time.

I am sorry that these footnotes have grown so big; let us leave them and return to the letter. There are many ways of answering such a letter. One might say, "MY DEAR MARGERY,--It was jolly to get a real letter from you at last--" but the "at last" would seem rather tactless considering what had pa.s.sed years before. Or one might say, "MY DEAR MARGERY,--Thank you for your jolly letter. I am so sorry about baby's knee and so glad about your toys. Perhaps if you gave one of the toys to baby, then her knee--" But I feel sure that Margery would expect me to do better than that.

In the particular case of this last letter but seven I wrote:--

"DEAREST MARGERY,--Thank you for your sweet letter. I had a very busy day at the office or I would have come to see you. P.T.O.--I hope to be down next week, and then I will tell you all about my work; but I have a lot more to do now, and so I must say Good-bye.

Your loving UNCLE."

There is perhaps nothing in that which demands an immediate answer, but with business-like prompt.i.tude Margery replied:--

"MY DEAR UNCLE thank you for your letter I am glad you are coming next week baby is quite well now are you p t o coming on Thursday next week or not say yes if you are I am p t o sorry you are working so hard from your loving MARGIE."

I said "Yes," and that I was her loving uncle. It seemed to be then too late for a "P.T.O.," but I got one in and put on the back, "Love to Baby." The answer came by return of post:--

"MY DEAR UNCLE thank you for your letter come erly on p t o Thursday come at half past nothing baby sends her love and so do p t o I my roking horse has a sirrup broken isnt that a pity say yes or no good-bye from your loving MARGIE."

Of course I thanked Baby for her love and gave my decision that it WAS a pity about the rocking-horse. I did it in large capitals, which (as I ought to have said before) is the means of communication between Margery and her friends. For some reason or other I find printing capitals to be more tiring than the ordinary method of writing.

"MY DEAR UNCLE," wrote Margery--

But we need not go into that. What I want to say is this: I love to get letters, particularly these, but I hate writing them, particularly in capitals. Years ago, I used to answer Margery's letters for her. It is now her turn to answer mine for me.

CHUM

IT is Chum's birthday to-morrow, and I am going to buy him a little whip for a present, with a whistle at the end of it. When I next go into the country to see him I shall take it with me and explain it to him. Two days' firmness would make him quite a sensible dog. I have often threatened to begin the treatment on my very next visit, but somehow it has been put off; the occasion of his birthday offers a last opportunity.

It is rather absurd, though, to talk of birthdays in connection with Chum, for he has been no more than three months old since we have had him. He is a black spaniel who has never grown up. He has a beautiful astrakhan coat which gleams when the sun is on it; but he stands so low in the water that the front of it is always getting dirty, and his ears and the ends of his trousers trail in the mud. A great authority has told us that, but for three white hairs on his s.h.i.+rt (upon so little do cla.s.s distinctions hang), he would be a c.o.c.ker of irreproachable birth. A still greater authority has sworn that he is a Suss.e.x. The family is indifferent--it only calls him a Silly a.s.s. Why he was christened Chum I do not know; and as he never recognizes the name it doesn't matter.

When he first came to stay with us I took him a walk round the village. I wanted to show him the lie of the land. He had never seen the country before and was full of interest. He trotted into a cottage garden and came back with something to show me.

"You'll never guess," he said. "Look!" and he dropped at my feet a chick just out of the egg.

I smacked his head and took him into the cottage to explain.

"My dog," I said, "has eaten one of your chickens."

Chum nudged me in the ankle and grinned.

"TWO of your chickens," I corrected myself, looking at the fresh evidence which he had just brought to light.

"You don't want me any more?" said Chum, as the financial arrangements proceeded. "Then I'll just go and find somewhere for these two." And he picked them up and trotted into the sun.

When I came out I was greeted effusively.

"This is a wonderful day," he panted, as he wriggled his body. "I didn't know the country was like this. What do we do now?"

"We go home," I said, and we went.

That was Chum's last day of freedom. He keeps inside the front gate now. But he is still a happy dog; there is plenty doing in the garden. There are beds to walk over, there are blackbirds in the apple tree to bark at. The world is still full of wonderful things.

"Why, only last Wednesday," he will tell you, "the fishmonger left his basket in the drive. There was a haddock in it, if you'll believe me, for master's breakfast, so of course I saved it for him.

I put it on the gra.s.s just in front of his study window, where he'd be SURE to notice it. Bless you, there's always SOMETHING to do in this house. One is never idle."

And even when there is nothing doing, he is still happy; waiting cheerfully upon events until they arrange themselves for his amus.e.m.e.nt. He will sit for twenty minutes opposite the garden bank, watching for a b.u.mble-bee to come out of its hole. "I saw him go in," he says to himself, "so he's bound to come out. Extraordinarily interesting world." But to his inferiors (such as the gardener) he pretends that it is not pleasure but duty which keeps him. "Don't talk to me, fool. Can't you see that I've got a job on here?"

Chum has found, however, that his particular mission in life is to purge his master's garden of all birds. This keeps him busy. As soon as he sees a blackbird on the lawn he is in full cry after it. When he gets to the place and finds the blackbird gone, he pretends that he was going there anyhow; he gallops round in circles, rolls over once or twice, and then trots back again. "You didn't REALLY think I was such a fool as to try to catch a BLACKBIRD?" he says to us. "No, I was just taking a little run--splendid thing for the figure."

And it is just Chum's little runs over the beds which call aloud for firmness--which, in fact, have inspired my birthday present to him.

But there is this difficulty to overcome first. When he came to live with us an arrangement was entered into (so he says) by which one bed was given to him as his own. In that bed he could wander at will, burying bones and biscuits, hunting birds. This may have been so, but it is a pity that n.o.body but Chum knows definitely which is the bed.

"Chum, you bounder," I shout as he is about to wade through the herbaceous border.

He takes no notice; he struggles through to the other side. But a sudden thought strikes him, and he pushes his way back again.

"Did you call me?" he says.

"How DARE you walk over the flowers?"

He comes up meekly.

"I suppose I've done SOMETHING wrong," he says, "but I can't THINK what."

I smack his head for him. He waits until he is quite sure I have finished, and then jumps up with a bark, wipes his paws on my trousers and trots into the herbaceous border again.

"Chum!" I cry.

He sits down in it and looks all round him in amazement.

"My own bed!" he murmurs. "Given to me!"