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65 to a dot. What more in the world is really called-for? As for sentiment... sentiment! in letters to my friends!... well, I simply cannot squeeze that out, or in. Nobody need expect it from your most obedient servant! My correspondence is like telegrams."

"Thanks much," I returned, smiling, "your remarks are most timely, considering that you and I have agreed to keep in touch with each other by post, after I leave here. Forewarned is forearmed! Might I ask, by the by, whether you are as laconic in writing, to—say, your friend Karvaly, over there in China? And if he is satisfied?"

"Karvaly? Certainly. He happens to like precisely that sort of communications particularly well. I never give him ten words where five will do." To which statement I retorted that it was a vast blessing that some persons were easily pleased, as well as so likeminded; and that perhaps it would be quite as wise under such conditions, not to write at all; except maybe on All-Souls Day!

"Perhaps," assented Imre.