Henry was in the garden when John Marsh arrived, accompanied by Mr. Quinn. Two letters had come to him that morning from England—one from Gilbert Farlow and the other from Mary Graham, and he was reading them again for the seventh or eighth time when the dogcart drove up to the house.

My dear old ass, Gilbert wrote, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful! That's my name now for things which can't be helped. I've taught it to Ninian, but he persists in calling it the Bloody Awful, which is low. He says that doesn't matter because he is low. Roger and I have had to clout his head rather severely lately ... it took two of us to do it.... Roger held his arms while I clouted him ... because he has become fearfully democratic, meaning by that, that anybody who knows more than his alphabet is an enemy of the poor. Roger and I are dead nuts on aristocracy at present. We go about saying, "My God, I'm a superman!" and try to look like Bernard Shaw. Roger only succeeds in looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy. But all this is away from the point, which is, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful. If your papa will send you to T.C.D., you must just grin and bear it, my lad. I've never met anybody from Trinity.... I suppose people do come out of it after they get into it ... but if you're careful and remember the example of your little friends, Gilbert and Ninian and Roger, you'll come to no harm. And when you do come to London, we'll try to improve what's left of your poor mind. It would be splendid to go to Ballymartin for the summer. Tell your papa that Ninian and Roger and I solemnly cursed him three times for preventing you from coming to Cambridge, and then gave him three cheers for asking us to Ireland. The top of the morning to you, my broth of a boy, and the heavens be your bed, bedad and bejabers, as you say in your country, according to Punch. Yours ever, Gilbert.

P.S. What about that two bob you owe me?