Friday.
Dear Enemy:
Here I stay lashed to the mast, while you run about the country
disporting yourself with insane people. And just as I was thinking that
I had nicely cured you of this morbid predilection for psychopathic
institutions! It's very disappointing. You had seemed almost human of
late.
May I ask how long you are intending to stay? You had permission to go
for two days, and you've already been away four.
Charlie Martin fell out of a cherry tree yesterday and cut his head
open, and we were driven to calling in a foreign doctor. Five stitches.
Patient doing well. But we don't like to depend on strangers. I wouldn't
say a word if you were away on legitimate business, but you know very
well that, after associating with melancholics for a week, you will come
back home in a dreadful state of gloom, dead sure that humanity is going
to the dogs; and upon me will fall the burden of getting you decently
cheerful again.
Do leave those insane people to their delusions, and come back to the
John Grier Home, which needs you.