Laziest of men and worst of correspondents, Robert Narramore had as yet sent no reply to the letters in which Hilliard acquainted him with his adventures in London and abroad; but at the end of July he vouchsafed a perfunctory scrawl.

"Too bad not to write before, but I've been floored every evening after business in this furious heat.

You may like to hear that my uncle's property didn't make a bad show.

I have come in for a round five thousand, and am putting it into brass bedsteads.

Sha'n't be able to get away until the end of August.