coming, like a lamp burning in a dark
night. I expect we shall all go off our heads with joy and be madder
than ever. Who in the old London days would have imagined such a nine
days of happiness in the old places as we are to have together.

God bless you, till we meet,
CON.

XXXVII

January 4th, 1917.

10.30 p.m.

MY DEAREST ONES:

This letter is written to welcome you to England, but I may be with you
when it is opened. It was glorious news to hear that you were coming--I
was only playing a forlorn bluff when I sent those cables. You're on the
sea at present and should be half way over. Our last trip over together
you marvelled at the apparent indifference of the soldiers on board, and
now you're coming to meet one of your own fresh from the Front. A
change!

O what a nine days we're going to have together--the most wonderful that
were ever spent. I dream of them, tell myself tales about them, live
them over many times in imagination before they are realised. Sometimes
I'm going to have no end of sleep, sometimes I'm going to keep awake
every second, sometimes I'm going to sit quietly by a fire, and
sometimes I'm going to taxi all the time. I can't fit your faces into
the picture--it seems too unbelievable that we are to be together once
again. To-day I've been staging our meeting--if you arrive first, and
then if I arrive before you, and lastly if we both hit London on the
same day. You mustn't expect me to be a sane person. You're three
rippers to do this--and I hope you'll have an easy journey. The only
ghost is the last day, when the leave train pulls out of Charing Cross.
But we'll do that smiling, too; C'est la guerre.

Yours always and ever, CON.

XXXVIII

January 6th, 1917.

MY DEAR ONES:

I have just seen a brother officer aboard the ex-London bus en route for
Blighty. How I wished I could have stepped on board that ex-London
perambulator to-night! "Pickerdilly Cirkuss, 'Ighbury, 'Ighgate, Welsh
'Arp--all the wye." O my, what a time I'll have when I meet you! I shall
feel as though if anything happens to me after my return you'll be able
to understand so much more bravely. These blinkered letters, with only
writing and no touch of live hands, convey so little. When we've had a
good time together and sat round the fire and talked interminably you'll
be able to read so much more between the lines of my future letters