My Dear "Frunck,"

I have no doubt you think me a blackguard, to put it mildly, for
taking such a month of Sundays to answer your letter; Of course I
thought to myself as soon as I had finished it: Dash it! here goes.
I'll write him a "jaw." But "dash it" here didn't go. I wrote to
mother instead, and when I had finished that one I was so tired of
scribbling that I "smucked a cegar" and turned in. I was then
staying for the night at the Sherbrooke Hotel, on my way to
Montreal, after having stuck Henry in the mud, which is the polite
way of saying that I left him rapidly taking root in the soil of the
new country. I haven't heard from him since we parted, partly, I
have no doubt, because I have been knocking about so much that all
my letters have missed me. In fact, I haven't heard from a soul for
more than a fortnight. However, I am stationary at last, for a time
anyway. I have got a job as senior draughtsman in a patent
solicitor's office (don't tell anybody, but my only junior is a boy
with a face more astute in angles than in expression). It is a rum
sort of work that I have to do--mostly making drawings from models
in perspective; not too easy, especially as the drawings have to be
finished off "up to Dick," or they are not accepted at the Patent
Office. But there's not much in it after all. No designing, no
calculations, and in a great many instances no real scale even. In
fact, so long as the drawing is done quickly and immaculately got
up, it does not matter a rap whether a man is as big as a monkey or
not, so long as they are both good-looking. You see the main object
is to make the principle of the invention clear at a glance in one
view, that is why they generally are perspective. I have only been
at it a day and a half, so I can't tell you much about either the