The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online Page B

encouraged me to dig my old novel out of its sepulchre, in a last forlorn effort. You know — the one I wrote just before I met you, and which no one will have anything to do with. He has promised to read it himself, which was so decent of him that I hadn’t the heart to suggest that a younger man might look upon it with more sympathy!
    I have just been reading the Messenger’s interview with you, my child. How entertaining! What grand publicity! And how damnable impertinent. I suppose I shall be expected to put up with everybody’s having the right to comment on My Wife in public. We shall have rows about it; I see that inevitably. I shall sneer first and then lose my temper, and if you once give in you will be a lost woman.
    Are you still quite sure you want to risk matrimony with
    Yours infuriatingly, Jack
George Harrison to Paul Harrison
    The Shack, Near Manaton, Devon 22.10.28
    My dear boy,
    This month I must begin by wishing you very many happy returns of the day, and I trust that the mail will live up to its reputation and deliver my letter in time for the auspicious occasion. God bless you, my dear boy, and send you all happiness and prosperity. You are now thirty-six years old — still a very young man to hold the responsible position you have made for yourself. Yet to me it seems strange to think that when I was your age I had been married and settled for sixteen years! I was only a boy of twenty when I married your dear Mother! Her memory is very near and dear to me at this time, as indeed, at all times. You must never think that, because I have formed other ties of late years, I do not think of her with the deepest affection. But I know you do not think so. You know that there is room in my heart for both: and it is a great happiness to me to have a son whose face recalls, even more vividly as the the years go by, that of my dear first wife.
    I was greatly pleased to have your letter and to know that the work goes so well. Yours is a great opportunity. I know how proud and happy I should have been at your age to have the advantage of working under so distinguished a man as Sir Maurice. In my opinion he is the greatest engineer of his day. It is most gratifying that he should entrust so much of the responsible work to you. Be very careful to check every figure and test everything, no matter how small, before it is put in place. The most brilliant calculation will not compensate for a defective bolt. Dolby’s is a first-class firm, but it is a sound rule to take nothing for granted.
    As you see, I am down in the old shack for my usual holiday. I was obliged to take it rather late this year, as I could not be spared from the office till we had got the new power-station through. However, the weather is fortunately very favourable, and I have been able to do a good deal of sketching as well as rambling after fungi. I missed our old Puff-ball friend, Lycoperdon giganteum, of course, but I gathered a beautiful dish of the little Amethyst agaric yesterday, and tomorrow morning I am going out in search of Amanita rubescens, which I intend to try very slowly and delicately stewed in beef broth, or in a mock-beef gravy of Fistulina hepatica, if I can find one in good condition. I do not know whether any one has ever tried this combination of two fungi. If it is a success I shall give the recipe in the little book I am writing on Neglected Edible Treasures. Messrs Hopkin & Bigelow are interested in my ‘operculum’, and I rather think they mean to publish it.
    5
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    I am sorry you are not here to go a-mushrooming with me. Margaret, of course, does not care for this kind of camp-life — I could not expect it of such a thorough little town-bird as she is — so I have had to become an old bachelor for the time being. I am hoping that young Lathom will come out with me sometimes on sketching expeditions. He seems a very decent, friendly young fellow, and it is very pleasant to have a fellow-artist in the place, with whom to