rong. I've therefore got a real
leave for two months. Your mother and I have a beautiful house here
that has been lent to us, right on the Channel where there's
nothing worth bombing and where as much sunshine and warmth come
as come anywhere in England. We got here last night and to-day is
as fine an early spring day as you ever had in the Sandhills. I
shall golf and try to find me an old horse to ride, and I'll stay
out in the sunshine and try to get the inside machinery going all
right. We may have a few interruptions, but I hope not many, if the
Germans leave us alone. Your mother has got to go to Newcastle to
christen a new British warship--a compliment the Admiralty pays her
"to bind the two nations closer together" etc. etc. And I've got to
go to Cambridge to receive an LL.D. for the President. Only such
things are allowed to interrupt us. And we are very much hoping to
see Frank here.

We are in sound of the battle. We hear the big guns whenever we go
outdoors. A few miles down the beach is a rifle range and we hear
the practice there. Almost any time of day we can hear aeroplanes
which (I presume) belong to the coast guard. There's no danger of
forgetting the war, therefore, unless we become stone deaf. But
this decent air and sunshine are blessings of the highest kind. I
never became so tired of anything since I had the measles as I've
become of London. My Lord! it sounded last night as if we had
jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Just as we were about to
go to bed the big gun on the beach--just outside the fence around
our yard--about 50 yards from the house, began its thundering
belch--five times in quick succession, rattling the windows and
shaking the very foundation of things. Then after a pause of a few
minutes, another round of five shots. Then the other guns all along
the beach took up the chorus--farther off--and the inland guns
followed. They are planted all the way to London--ninety miles. For
about two hours we had this roar and racket. There was an air raid
on, and there were supposed to be twenty-five or thirty German
planes on their way to London. I hear that it was the worst raid
that London has had. Two of them were brought down--that's the only
good piece of news I've heard about it. Well, we are not supposed