2110-3-4-31

Neutral Press G.H.Q.

8..11. 18.

My dear John,

I have just got yours of 5th inst. I can only say this. I often saw Sir Walter Roper Lawrence K.C.S.I, & as many etcs as anyone could desire before he journeyed West but never since. He never even came to

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curse me for having had his letters censored. As far as I am concerned he might have been drowned but but these stout pecunious parties seldom exit save by the bed on shore. The only possible guilt that could could attach to me would be if he handed them back to me in F.O. before he sailed, having finished with them. In that case no power would have induced me to "take them home"

They mean as little to me as Hecuba. .·. they would be in the Dept. archives' H.Q. I can assure you I haven't seen the worthy Bart nor his son since the period of the daily visit - without extra fee - forme. Nor did I ever have writings registered or unregistered form either. Lady Lawrence ceased to communicate with me about ²/₃ through the marital progress through U.S.A. . C'est tout! But the 7 seals that Goethe spoke of in regard to the past begin for me at yesterday & I may be the victim of a hideous blank. I may have been asked for the 2nd. time to Eaton Square, may have got very drunk, offered a safe conduct to your book of cuttings, put them in a street watcher's brazier, used the male privilege against the railings of the Sou: Ken: Museum (which has happened once)

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got into 8 West Cromwell Road [6 underlines] somehow & awakened smug and official at the usual time & gone to F.O. or I.D.Adm unconscious of crime.

But it cannot be. The only time I was there Stephen McKenna was there & I saw a bounder under the restraint of material success transcending all but his wildest dreams (things had been done to the house making it look enormous but really & mathematically

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reducing the accommodation) Clive was there! It was unforgettable. No I'm sure I never went there again.

But meantime it may amuse you to know that I have been in Lille "Ruby" Tourcoing Rousselaire Brugge en Zeebrugge Blankenbergh priest ridden Douai (now bereft of kists o' whustles) "la bonne et franc/franque? ville de (mediaeval) Valenciennes." I saw the march past at Lille & at V. "One" beats "5" every