At the fourth watch on Thursday the 13th of November, Hannibal routed
the advance guard of the Romans and led the Carthaginian forces over
the mountains into the plains of Casilinum. A cohort of light armed
Numidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maximus. Two battles
and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses.

I have the honour of being,
Your special correspondent from the front,
J. Abbott

PS. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been
warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, just this
once--are you awfully old or just a little old? And are you perfectly
bald or just a little bald? It is very difficult thinking about you in
the abstract like a theorem in geometry.

Given a tall rich man who hates girls, but is very generous to one
quite impertinent girl, what does he look like?

R.S.V.P.

19th December

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You never answered my question and it was very important.

ARE YOU BALD?

I have it planned exactly what you look like--very
satisfactorily--until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM
stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair or
sort of sprinkly grey hair or maybe none at all.

Here is your portrait:

But the problem is, shall I add some hair?

Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They're grey, and
your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're called in
novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down
at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy old thing with a
temper.

(Chapel bell.)

9.45 p.m.

I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no
matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I
read just plain books--I have to, you know, because there are eighteen
blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss of
ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. The
things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and
friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of. For
example:

I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella
or Blue Beard or Robinson Crus