# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 63

On this first visit we discussed the wisdom of continuing to send letters in Tim Slade's care, and Mr. Harding seemed disposed to make a change. I imagine he didn't want to impose too much upon Tim and didn't wish to further arouse Tim's curiosity. At that time Tim was out of the secret service, I believe, though for a month or two after Mr. Harding's inauguration Tim said he helped George Christian until the latter "got onto" things in a secretarial way.
The most direct channel through which my letters could be delivered into his hands, Mr. Harding said, was to address them in care of his valet. Major Arthur Brooks, a light colored man, who was, in the opinion of Mr. Harding, entirely trustworthy and, what was better, so far as Tim was concerned, Major Brooks was always availably near to deliver them immediately without putting himself out to do so. Mr. Harding always referred to him as "Brooks." So it was arranged: I was to enclose my letter to the President in another envelope, sealed, and then enclose the whole in an envelope addressed to Major Brooks ​personally, with a short letter to Brooks instructing him to deliver the enclosure to the President immediately. I remember very well, because I wrote so many of those letters, that they always read something like this:
"My dear Major Brooks:
"Kindly hand the enclosed letter to President Harding immediately upon its receipt. This is in accordance with the President's request.Very truly yours, (Signed) E. Baye."
"E. Baye" was the name I used also when I wrote to Tim Slade, and was, if I remember correctly, suggested by Tim, as a result of his first trip to Eagle Bay in the summer of 1920, when he for the first time delivered a communication from Mr. Harding to me.
After my visit to Washington when we had decided upon sending my letters to the President in Major Arthur Brooks' care, we never experienced any further losses, and up until June of 1923, when Mr. Harding left for Alaska and I sailed for Europe, I sent my letters to my sweetheart in care of Major Brooks.
I have already stated that there existed a mutual agreement between Mr. Harding and me to destroy each other's letters, and as a result I have in my possession only certain formal letters (from most of which I have quoted near the beginning of my story) which I asked Mr. Harding if I might keep. In view of the fact that I was to destroy all love-letters from him, and these early letters contained no intimate allusions, being the first ones he ever wrote me, he gave his permission for me to keep them; otherwise, they, too, would have gone with the rest.
Two letters Mr. Harding sent me—one in 1918 and another in 1919, the first to New York, in care of the United States Steel Corporation office, and the second to Asbury Park addressed in error to the Hotel Marlborough instead of the Hotel Monmouth—were never received. They contained respectively $30 and $40 in cash. The third letter lost in the mails was the one I have spoken of as having been sent to the fictitious name of "A. Y. Jerose" and mailed from Chicago by me to Mr. Harding in ​Atlanta, Georgia. So, with one letter sent to the White House which he did not receive, there had been four letters sent which had gone astray, two from Mr. Harding to me, and two from me to Mr. Harding.