I can't tell you how honoured I am by your asking me to be Godmother. I have the warmest feelings towards your little nouveau-né and shall watch its first steps with all the eagerness a parent could desire. I cast about in my mind as to what to send it. Not a silver mug. No, not a mug. They only tilt them over their noses and breath into them. Besides, the handle of mine, being silver, was always red hot, so that I had to lap up what was inside, like a kitten… The matter I see demands time for consideration. But very seriously, I am most happy Cobden-Sanderson liked your book. I am sure it will be a success. And I look forward to reading it again and making other people read it. All success to you and many many thanks.

Please do not praise me too much. It is awfully nice to be praised, but at the same time it makes me hang my head. I have done so little. I should have done so much more. There are these rows of stories, all waiting. All the same, I can't deny that praise is like a most lovely present, a bright bouquet coming to me (but gently! I hope) out of the air.

Don't imagine for one moment though, that I think myself wonderful! That is far, far from the truth. I page 185 take writing too seriously to be able to flatter myself. I've only begun. The only story that satisfies me to any extent is the one you understand so well, The Daughters of the Late Col., and parts of Je ne parle pas. But Heavens, what a journey there is before one!

By the way, for proof of your being a writer you had only to mention a bath chair and it crept into your hand-writing. It was a queer coincidence. I had just been writing about a bathchair myself and poor old Aunt Aggie, who had lived in one and died in one—glided off, so that one saw her in her purple velvet steering carefully among the stars and whimpering faintly as was her terrestial wont when the wheel jolted over a particularly large one. But these conveyances are not to be taken lightly or wantonly. They are terrible things. No less.

I hope if you do come to Paris at Easter you will come and see me. By then I expect I shall have a little flat. I am on the track of a minute apartment with a wax-bright salon where I shall sit like a bee writing short stories in a honeycomb. But these retreats are hard to find.

I am here undergoing treatment by a Russian doctor, who claims to have discovered a cure for tuberculosis by the application of X-rays. The only real trouble is it's terribly expensive. So much so that when I read the price I felt like Tchehov wanted Anna Ivanovna to feel when she read his story in a hot bath—as though someone had stung her in the water and she wanted to run sobbing out of the bath-room. But if it all comes true it means one will be invisible once more—no more being offered chairs and given arms at sight. A close season for ever for hot-water-bottles and glasses of milk. Well, people don't realise the joy of being invisible—it's almost the greatest joy of all. But I'll have to write at least a story a week until next May, which is a little bit frightening.

Oxford, from the papers sounds very sinister. And why when people receive anonymous boxes of chocolate do they always wait to hand them round until friends come page 186 to tea? What ghouls they are, to be sure! Professor X., who saved the lives of Doctor and Mrs. R. sounds profoundly moved. I should feel very tempted were I in Oxford to—hm—hm—better not. No doubt the secret police has steamed this letter over a cup of warm tea…