The last paragraph in their letter gave me the impression that they
knew they had the picture but had mislaid it. Meanwhile Panmore seemed
so hot on it and I was so badly hit by the War that I thought I would
have another shot at recovering it. So I addressed the Gallery as
follows:--
DEAR SIRS,--Thanks for your letter, and in reply I should be
obliged if you could get another search party out. I have found
a receipt for the picture, signed with a name that might, if
straightened out, be James Langford.
My friend is getting quite excited about it, and he is the sort
of person one wants to humour. He is a Lieut.-Colonel, an O.B.E.,
and, what is more important still, one of the feoffees of
Buckley's Hospital (a fifteenth-century foundation here), and
whatever a feoffee may be he is not the kind of man to toy with in
a small town like this.
I forgot to mention that there is an inn on the left of the
picture, and a girl coming out of it carrying, perhaps, a
bran-mash for the horse or some Government dope for the man, and
there are some hens, all fully regardant and expectant, at her
feet.
Hoping to hear in the course of a post or two that you have found
the painting,