"Bon Repos, July
"(some date, but I'll be hanged if I know what).

"MY DEAR DAD,--In some rustic nook reclining, silken
tresses softly twining, Far-off bells so faintly ringing, While we
list the blackbird singing, Merrily his roundelay. There! I
composed those lines this morning during the process of shaving. I
don't think they are very bad. I put them at the beginning of my
letter so as to make sure that you will read them, a process of
which I might reasonably be doubtful had I left them for the fag
end of my communication. Learn, sir, that you have a son who is a
born poet!!!

"But now to business.

"Don't hurry over my letter, dear dad; don't run away with the idea
that I have any grand discovery to lay before you. My epistle will
be merely a record of trifles and commonplaces, and that simply
from the fact that I have nothing better to write about. To me, at
least, they seem nothing but trifles. For you they may possess an
occult significance of which I know nothing.

"In the first place. On the day following that of your departure
from Windermere, I was duly inducted by Cleon into my new duties.
They are few in number, and by no means difficult. So far I have
contrived to get through them without any desperate blunder.
Another thing I have done of which you will be pleased to hear: I
have contrived to ingratiate myself with the mulatto, and am in
high favour with him. You were right in your remarks; he is worth