nce, refused a
reward, as near the V.C. as I'm able to bestow, and I told him to call
on you. You're sure to hear from him soon.

This is the second narrow escape I've had within a week. I oughtn't to
take these risks till I'm ready to face the consequences, whatever they
may be. But I'd do more to be in sight of Patricia Moore's profile which
is about all I see of her in the car these days when (in every sense of
the word) I'm obliged to take "a back seat." Do, for heaven's sake,
finish up your end of the business and give me a free hand, since you
yourself say I may in honour take it. I probably should take it even if
you said the opposite--that I tell you frankly, as I believe I've told
you before. But it's good to have your backing.

I've been to Plymouth to-day, thanks to a chap I've hired to do my work
for me, and have returned to Boston, which we shall leave to-morrow for
good and all. Caspian had an accident just before starting time--had
been out in a taxi on a hurried errand to some shop, and the chauffeur,
trying to be helpful, banged the door with C.'s finger in it. The finger
was in a glove, or the hurt would have been more serious, but even as it
was, when he tried to take the wheel of the G.-G. he found the pain
unbearable. I was called--like a male Cinderella--from the ashes (those
of a cigarette) and ordered to drive. In an instant the secretary had
become the chauffeur. I can do these fairy godmother trick-acts like
lightning; and as Miss Moore didn't think it necessary to change her
seat, I knew that Fate was going, anyhow, to give me one good day.

I had never been by road from Boston to Plymouth, and as I'd not
expected to drive, I hadn't looked up the route. Caspian probably had,
but I didn't want help from him, and I determined to die rather than
look at a map. You, a Harvard man, no doubt know the way well, though a
motor car was a rare if not unknown species of animal when you were an
undergrad.

In the beginning it was easy enough. We simply went out of Boston along
the road by which we'd come in: past the Arnold Arboretum of which you
Harvard fellows are so proud; Forest Hill, parklike Morton Street, and
across the Neponset River, where my dear little seat-mate (who couldn't
have guessed how I felt to be by her side again) was enraptured with the
view of Boston Harbour. She was gayer than I had seen her since that
moonlight night when I came to myself--too late, as it turned out; yet I
don