The herald., 1896-08-02
II SUPPOSE THAT I FELT AND
SPOKE LIKE AN ANGRY MAN"

SPOKE LIKE AN ANGRY MAN"
year afterwards when l happened to see
in the paper an announcement Of the death
OF his wife. l wrote to express my sym
pathy. and he never answered that letter
either ! made allowances for his cratic
nature, but my patience was considerably
tried. Years went by, and then one day
l got short note from him:
Dear Edward:-You never told me what
you thought of that reading in the Aga
memnon which proposed to you. / wish
you would. Do you happen to want to buy
or to know anybody who wants to buy
quantity of precious opas?
Try to answer this at once.
Yours ever,
PHILIP AMORY."
To this replied:
Dear Phil:-Since you first wrote on the
Agamemnon, l have forgotten my Greek
but without acquiring in it's place any de-
sire to buy opels or any knowledge of any
one with that desire. You have treated
10 abominably. and eccentricity does not
Excuse you. Come back to England, and
/ will forgive you-but correspondence
with you Is hopeless. Yours ever
EDWARD DERRIMER"
One more year passed, and then one
morning a letter was brought me with the
postmark of Ayshurst, little Buckng-
hamshire village. 1t ran:
Dear Edward You declined-rightly.
think-to correspond with me. My faults
as a correspondent are due to several
causes. I write letters which afterwards
forget to post I do not send news of N.Y.
self, because it is impossible for me to
realize that people must be told things
about me which do not require to be told
about myself. Also, have been very busy.
However you said that If 1 returned to
England you would forgive me, and have
returned. am thirty-two years old and I
have done my roaming. 1 shall not leave
England again.
Il have bought Snden, and settled here
with Wimay. You remember that once
told you at Cambridge that 1 knew of a
little spot which meant to buy one day.
That was Sinden-an Elizabethan house
and about forty acres of freehold. The gar
den is dream. Wilmay and want you
to come down tomorrow and stay for any
period not less than one lunar month. For
the sake of old times come, and bring my
absolution with you. Yours ever,
PHILIP AMORY
a case in point. How was to realize that
you require to be told that, when never
require to be told it myself?
l hesitated. but the appeal to old times
decided me. I wrote him a long letter,
abused him for all his little failings, and
said that l would most certainly come on
the morrow, and my train would arrive at
seven in the evening.
AS stood on the platform, watching the
receding Train that I had just missed, l
suppose that felt and spoke like an angry
man, for the porter mildly suggested that
it was not his fault, and that he did not
make the trains.
"How long is it to the next? Half an
hour?"
Full an hour"
thought of putting off my visit until
the morrow rather than dislocate nv hosts
dinner-hour. But my bag was packed. and
1t did not seem worth while to 20 hack
after l had once Started. To fiji in the
time, l strolled out into the street found
telegraph office, and sent off ninenence-
halfpenny worth of my best apologies In
Philip. Then 1t occurred to me that
might buy present for WiIrnay. II was
characteristic that even now Philip had
never mentioned whether Wilmay was n
boy or girl, but at ten years old the sexes
nave much in common. l passed a shon
wnere they sold French chocolates, and
bought enough to account satisfactorily
for my existence to Wilmay-boy or girl.
children mostly like you to produce some