“DEAR FRIEND—­

“It is with Great pleasure for to answer your post Card that i received this morning i was very pleased to receive it and to know that you are still in the land of the Living i have often thought about you and as i had not seen you i thought you had Gone home i have shown the Card to Jenkens and the tall one and also a nother Policeman you know and they all wish me to Remember them Verry kindly to you they was surprised to think you had taken the trouble to write to me they said he is a Good old sort not forgetting the little drops we had at the six bells and Kings Head.

“P.  H. What do you think of this terrable war it is shocking i have just Got the news that a cousin of mine is wounded and he is at Clacton on sea he is a Sergt in the 1th Coldstreams Gds got a wife and 4 Children i have been on the sick list this Last 17 days suffering from Rumitism but i am better London is very quiet Especially at Night the Pubs Close at 11 m. and half the Lights in the streets are out surch Lights flashing all round 2 on hyde Park Corner 2 Lambert Bridge 2 War office dear Friend i hope i shall have the Pleasure to receive a Letter from you before long Now i think that this is all i have to say at present so will close with my best respects to you your

  “Sincere friend
    “WILLIAM CHARLES BUCKINGTON.”

The letter which later I sent him was returned to me by the Post Office.  And that is all that I know of my friend, man of ardent nature and gentle feeling, lover of flowers, London policeman, gone, perhaps, to the wars.  Cheyne Walk would not be Cheyne Walk again to me without him.

XVI

HELP WANTED—­MALE, FEMALE

The people who (because they think they don’t need to) do not read the “Help Wanted” “ads” in the newspapers really ought to do this, anyway for a week or so in every year.  They are the people, above all others, that would be most benefited by this department of journalism.

Now, there is nobody who more than myself objects in his spirit to the very common practice of this one’s saying to that one that he, or she, “ought to” do this or that thing.  Nobody knows all the circumstances in which another is placed.  Some people insist upon saying “under the circumstances.”  But that is wrong.  One is surrounded by circumstances; one is not under them, as though they were an umbrella.  Nobody ought to say “under the circumstances.”  However, this is merely by the by.

It’s a queer thing, though, that Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who certainly writes some of the best English going, says that “under the” and so forth is all right.  Certainly it is not.  But, as I said before, this is not a point about which we are talking.