"MY DEAR JAMES,--Thank you very much for your invitation, which I am very
pleased to accept. The country, after all, is the proper place for old
fogeys like myself, as it is very difficult for them to live up to the
present-day bustle of a large city. For the last six months I have been
doing odd jobs at a munition factory, which, I must admit, has benefited my
health in an extraordinary manner, so much so that I have entirely lost the
troublesome dyspepsia I suffered from, and now, you will be glad to hear, I
am able to eat like a hunter, as we used to say. Hoping to find you all
flourishing on Thursday next, about lunch-time,
"Your affectionate
UNCLE TOM."
Instinctively I took my belt in a hole. Then Margery silently placed this
in front of me:--
"DARLING MARGERY,--How perfectly sweet of you! I shall simply love it. I am
feeling especially beany as I have just finished with the dentist--usually
a hateful person--who found out, after all, that it was not necessary to
take out any of my teeth. I adore him. No time for more. Heaps to tell you
on Friday,
"Your loving
J.J."
"Hullo! Where are you off to?" I asked, as Margery made for the door.
"Off to? Why, to put our names down on the Singleweeds' waiting list."
I took my belt up another hole and, whistling _The Bing Boys_ out of sheer
desperate bravado, made my gloomy way to the potato patch.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Plough Girl_. "MABEL, DO GO AND ASK THE FARMER IF WE CAN
HAVE A SMALLER HORSE. THIS ONE'S TOO TALL FOR THE SHAFTS."]
* * * * *