* * * * *
If some of the letters are more letter-like than these, surely none are
more like the boy himself! It was Oscar talking to us from his trench,
talking harder than ever while there was time, telling us all manner of
things in each eager breath! And I was to have talked back next night;
there were one or two things I was looking forward to telling him. First,
how his nine-and-a-half-months-old Commission had only just arrived in
all its documentary glory; and how it began with the King’s greeting, ‘To
our Trusty and well beloved Arthur Oscar Hornung’!
Then I had to tell him how I had just been to tea in the room where
‘Vanity Fair’ was written, after pointing out the house to people for
twenty years, as one that I never expected to have the joy of entering.
It was a last joy. Within the hour came the telegram to say that Oscar
had been killed in action on July 6.