sleepily.

"You haven't written it. The missus has written it. It has a French stamp
and the Paris postmark. You'd better read it."

He put it on his master's pillow, and went to the window to admire the
view. Septimus aroused, read the letter. It was from Emmy. It ran:

"DEAREST SEPTIMUS:

"I can't stand this loneliness in Paris any longer. I can't, I can't. If
you were here and I could see you even once a week, I shouldn't mind. But
to go on day after day indefinitely without a comforting word from you is
more than I can bear. You say the flat is ready. I am coming over at once
with baby and Madame Bolivard, who swears she will never leave me. How
she is going to get on in London without a word of English, I don't know.
I don't mind if I meet Zora. Perhaps it will be better for you that I
should. And I think it will be quite safe for me now. Don't hate me and
think me horrid and selfish, my dear Septimus, but I do want you. I do. I
do. Thanks for the toy train. Baby enjoys the paint on the carriages so
much; but Madame Bolivard says it isn't good for him. Dear, if I thought
you wouldn't forgive me for being such a worry, I wouldn't worry you.

"Your always grateful
"EMMY."

Septimus lit the half-smoked pipe of the night before that lay on the
coverlet, and becoming aware of Wiggleswick, disturbed his contemplation of
nature by asking him if he had ever been married.

"What?" asked Wiggleswick in the unmodulated tone of the deaf.

"Have you ever been married, Wiggleswick?"

"Heaps of times," said the old man.

"Dear me," said Septimus. "Did you commit bigamy?"

"Bigamy? No. I buried 'em all honorable."

"That," said Septimus, "was very kind of you."

"It was out of gratitude."

"For their goodness?"

"No. For being delivered from 'em. I had a lot of experience before I
could learn the blessedness of a single life."

Septimus sighed. "Yet it must be very nice to have a wife, Wiggleswick."

"But ain't yer got one?" bawled the disreputable body-servant.

"Of course, of course," said Septimus hurriedly. "I was thinking of the
people who hadn't."

Wiggleswick approached his master's bedside, with a mysteriously
confidential air.

"Don't you think we're all cosy and comfortable here, sir?"

"Yes," said Septimus dubiously.

"Well, I for one have nothing to complain of. The vittles is good, and one
sleeps warm, and one has one's beer and 'baccy regular. What more does