a church we continued going on around it until we had encircled it five
times or it had encircled us, we were not sure which. After the fifth
lap we gave up and sat down on the steps. Ethel had on low slippers
and was shivering and coughing but intensely amused and only scared for
fear she would lose her voice for the first night of "Peter"-- We could
hear voices sometimes, like people talking in a dream, and sometimes
the sound of dance music, and a man's voice calling "Perlice" in a
discouraged way as if he didn't much care whether the police came or
not, but regularly like a fog siren-- I don't know how long we sat
there or how long we might have sat there had not a man with a bicycle
lamp loomed up out of the mist and rescued us. He had his mother with
him and she said with great pride that her boy could find his way
anywhere. So, we clung to her boy and followed. A cabman passed
leading his horse with one of his lamps in his other hand and I turned
for an instant to speak to him and Ethel and her friends disappeared
exactly as though the earth had opened. So, I yelled after them, and
Ethel said "Here, I am," at my elbow. It was like the chesire cat that
kept appearing and disappearing until he made Alice dizzy. We finally
found a link-boy and he finally found the McCarthy's house, and I left
them giving Ethel quinine and whiskey. They wanted me to stay, but I
could not face dressing, in the morning. So I felt my way home and
only got lost twice. The Arch on Constitution Hill gave me much
trouble. I thought it was the Marble Arch, and hence-- In Jermyn
Street I saw two lamps burning dimly and a voice said, hearing my
footsteps "where am I? I don't know where I am no more than nothing--"
I told him he was in Jermyn Street with his horse's head about twenty
feet from St. James-- There was a long dramatic silence and then the
voice said-- "Well, I be blowed I thought I was in Pimlico!!!"

This has been such a long letter that I shall have to skip any more. I
have NO sciatica chiefly because of the fur coat, I think, and I got
two Christmas presents, one from Margaret Fraser and one from the
Duchess of Sutherland-- Boxing Day I took Margaret to the matinee of
the Pantomine and it lasted five hours, until six twenty, then I
dressed and dined with the Hay's and went with them to the Barnum
circus which began at eight and lasted until twelve. It was a busy day.

Lots of love.

DICK.

LONDON, March