2110-4-3-27

Dear Colonel Buchan

I can 't help thinking the following may amuse you. A funny little old couple whom everyone loves are going off to Italy for the winter and asked me the other day if I was reading "Midwinter" as it was coming out in a newspaper. For the moment I could not place it and thought very sadly someone else had typed it for you, so I said ''No, who is it about?". "Oh, we can't tell you that, we are cutting it out every day and sticking it into a manuscript book so as to read it when we are abroad when it is finished, and we try not to see even so much as a name beforehand, so as not to spoil our pleasure at all." I think it 's a pretty tribute, like a child saving up the sugary bit of cake to the last.

Your ever grateful typist Ethel Candy

Hillmore Bournemouth. 19. 9. 23.