ne him. If so, my imagination is
going strong. What I seem to see is a little old man in a frock coat so
long that his legs (like those of the Queen of Spain) are negligible.
He has a putty colored face (so blurred that I keep expecting him to
rub it out altogether), white hair, pale blue eyes--and an umbrella.

Yesterday, attempting to establish cordial relations, I asked him why
the umbrella. He had a fit right on the spot?

Let me explain about the fits. When his daughter just said, "Father
will have a fit," I thought she spoke in a Pickwickian sense, meaning,
"Father will experience annoyance." But when I heard him having it, I
realized that she had probably been quite literal. When father has a
fit he bangs his umbrella to the floor and jumps on it. Also he tears
his hair. I have seen the pieces.

I said to my nurse: "The mention of his umbrella seems to agitate your
father." She turned quite pale. "It does," she said. "I hope you
haven't mentioned it." I said that I had merely asked for information.
"And did you get it?" asked she. I said that I had--since it was
apparent that one has to carry an umbrella if one wishes to have it
handy to jump upon. She didn't laugh at all, and looked so withdrawn
that it was quite plain I need expect no elucidation from her.

I had to dismiss the subject altogether. But, later on, Li Ho (who
appears to partially approve of me) gave a curious side light on the
matter. At night as he was tucking me up safely (the sofa is slippery),
he said, "Honorable Boss got hole in head-top. Sun velly bad. Umblella
keep him off."

"But he carries it at night, too," I objected.

Li Ho wagged his parchment head. "Keep moon off all same. Moon muchy
more bad. Full moon find urn hole. Make Honorable Boss much klasy."

Remarkably lucid explanation--don't you think so? The "hole in head
top" is evidently Li Ho's picturesque figure for "mental vacuum."
Therefore I gather that our yellow brother suspects his honorable boss
of being weak-headed, a condition aggravated by the direct rays of the
sun and especially by the full moon. He may be right--though the old
man seems harmless enough. "Childlike and bland" describes him usually.
Though there are times when he looks at me with those pale eyes--and I
wish that I were not quite so helpless! He dislikes me. But I have
known quite sane people do that.

I am writing nonsense. One has to, with sciatica. I hope this
confounded leg lets me get some sle