The satin is simply scrumptious. If you
don't come and see me in it some time soon, I shall come and show it
to you. I wish I had a moustache, because my top lip feels just like a
matchbox, but it's rather ripping having breakfast in bed. Mr. Pillin's
taking us to the theatre the day after to-morrow evening. Isn't it
nummy! I'm going to have rum and honey for my cold.
"Good-bye,
"Your PHYLLIS."
So this that quivered in his thick fingers, too insensitive to feel it,
was a valentine for him!
Forty years ago that young thing's grandmother had given him his last.
It made him out a very old chap! Forty years ago! Had that been
himself living then? And himself, who, as a youth came on the town
in 'forty-five? Not a thought, not a feeling the same! They said you
changed your body every seven years. The mind with it, too, perhaps!
Well, he had come to the last of his bodies, now! And that holy woman
had been urging him to take it to Bath, with her face as long as
a tea-tray, and some gammon from that doctor of his. Too full a
habit--dock his port--no alcohol--might go off in a coma any night!
Knock off not he! Rather die any day than turn tee-totaller! When a man
had nothing left in life except his dinner, his bottle, his cigar, and
the dreams they gave him--these doctors forsooth must want to cut them
off! No, no! Carpe diem! while you lived, get something out of it.
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