self to forgive me. Of course,
I don't wonder at his anger. I should be just the same myself. It does
look like a shocking breach of professional honour, and a sad disregard
of his interests. If he knew the truth he would see that it was nothing
worse than a silly ill-timed boyish joke. However, he never shall know
the truth.

And now there is some chance of my getting something to do. We had
a letter to-night from Christie & Howden, the writers to the Signet,
saying that they desire an interview with me, in view of a possible
appointment. We can't imagine what it means, but I am full of hopes. I
go to-morrow morning to see them, and I shall let you know the result.

Good-bye, my dear Bertie! Your life flows in a steady stream, and mine
in a broken torrent. Yet I would have every detail of what happens to
you.

IV. HOME, 1st December, 1881.

I may be doing you an injustice, Bertie, but it seemed to me in
your last that there were indications that the free expression of my
religious views had been distasteful to you. That you should disagree
with me I am prepared for; but that you should object to free and honest
discussion of those subjects which above all others men should be honest
over, would, I confess, be a disappointment. The Freethinker is placed
at this disadvantage in ordinary society, that whereas it would be
considered very bad taste upon his part to obtrude his unorthodox
opinion, no such consideration hampers those with whom he disagrees.
There was a time when it took a brave man to be a Christian. Now it
takes a brave man not to be. But if we are to wear a gag, and hide our
thoughts when writing in confidence to our most intimate----no, but I
won't believe it. You and I have put up too many thoughts together and
chased them where-ever{sic} they would double, Bertie; so just write to
me like a good fellow, and tell me that I am an ass. Until I have that
comforting assurance, I shall place a quarantine upon everything which
could conceivably be offensive to you.

Does not lunacy strike you, Bertie, as being a very eerie thing? It is
a disease of the soul. To think that you may have a man of noble mind,
full of every lofty aspiration, and that a gross physical cause, such
as the fall of a spicule of bone from the inner table of his skull on
to the surface of the membrane which covers his brain, may have the
ultimate effect of turning him into an obscene creature with every
bestial attribute! Tha