set, I write to ask you to come up here.  I admit that I am not
wholly disinterested in inviting you.  The truth is, Tom and I are
invited to spend a fortnight with my old schoolmate, Alice Wayne,
who, you know, is the dearest girl in the world, though you DIDN'T
obey me and marry her before Frank Wayne appeared.  Well, we're
dying to go, for Alice and Frank live in splendid style; but as
they haven't included our children in their invitation, and have
no children of their own, we must leave Budge and Toddie at home.
I've no doubt they'll be perfectly safe, for my girl is a jewel,
and devoted to the children, but I would feel a great deal easier
if there was a man in the house.  Besides, there's the silver, and
burglars are less likely to break into a house where there's a
savage-looking man.  (Never mind about thanking me for the
compliment.) If YOU'LL only come up, my mind will be completely at
rest.  The children won't give you the slightest trouble; they're
the best children in the world--everybody says so. 

"Tom has plenty of cigars, I know, for the money I should have had
for a new suit went to pay his cigar-man.  He has some new claret,
too, that HE goes into ecstasies over, though _I_ can't tell it