Yours sincerely,
      Arthur K. Wilkinson.

How this early touch of Spring has got into the blood, to be sure.

To this letter Mr. Gibbs replied thus:—­

Dear Sir,—­i cant make much of your letter except a riglemerole about pigs and dinamite and pictures but what they have to do with one another i dont know if you want some pork why dont you say so strait out like mr Hobson does i shall be killing one this week shall i send you a nice leg and remain

      Yours obedient
      Henry Gibbs.

My reply, given in the affirmative, resulted in the arrival of a succulent-looking joint with a bill for leg of pork special 51/2 lbs. at 2_s._ per lb. 11_s._

As the price too was rather special I returned the bill with the following:—­

My dear Mr. Gibbs,—­What a rapturous piece of pork!  Lovely in life, and oh, how beautiful in death.  I count the hours till 7.30 to-morrow.

I am truly sorry you couldn’t read my letter with comfort.  I have derived great pleasure from yours.  You appear to have a strong leaning towards phonetic orthography which is very refreshing and seems to bear the same relation to the generally accepted rules of the art that the modern dynamic art (a favourite topic of mine, as you know) does to the academics of the late nineteenth century.

When the proof-sheets of my book arrive I should be glad of your assistance in going through them.  My tendency, I think, is to over-punctuate, and your proclivity would, I believe, counteract this.

Mais revenons a nos moutons (mutatis mutandis, of course).  The specialist who superintends my diet allows me to eat pork at 1_s._ 9_d._ per lb., but does not approve of my indulgence in it at a higher figure.  If you will meet his views (and I am sure you will) I shall absorb my full share of the dainty you have provided.  Otherwise I must return it with many exquisite regrets.

Anticipating your favourable recognition of my specialist’s absurd prejudice, I enclose a cheque for 9_s._ 8_d._

      Accept my word for it that I am
        Yours ever most truly,
          Arthur K. Wilkinson.

To this Mr. Gibbs offered the following reply:—­

Deer Sir,—­i thought being a friend of mr Hobson you was a gentleman as wouldn’t mind paying a bit extra for something special like this pork which these pigs was by Barnsley Champion III i cant charge less. i dont know who your specialist is but he dont know much about pork the bests the safest. please send ballance and remain

      Yours obedient,
        Henry Gibbs.

We were still in March and pork had not yet been decontrolled, so I returned the bill again with this brief but incisive note:—­

My dear Mr. Gibbs,—­I have never met your friend from Barnsley, but am surprised that you haven’t come across my specialist, whose address is the Local Food Control Office at Harbury.  Would you like to meet him?  He is very interested in pigs, also in milk and other things in which you specialise expensively, so you would have lots to talk about, no doubt.