Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/90

 they want most to know, and what they usually want to know most concerns ourselves. At the beginning of the recent war a young friend of mine accompanied one of the first American units to go to France. It was with considerable agitation and feeling that I saw him leave, and I waited with eagerness and impatience to receive his first letter. As the days passed I followed in my mind every detail of his progress. I saw him embark, I met all the new friends with whom he came in contact on the voyage, I felt all the excitement contingent upon the dangers which he encountered on the sea, and I finally landed with him in France. I followed him to Paris over a not unfamiliar road, for I had been there two or three times myself, and I then waited to have him confirm all that I had imagined.

His first letter came within a month or so. He was having some difficulty with his credit, he told me; would I write his Chicago banker or call him up over the telephone and get the matter straightened out for him. He was uncertain just what he would get into or where he would be sent. There was not a word about the