As official papers accompanied every letter, a trace of departmental style is occasionally visible in private notes:
War Trade Intelligence Department.
23 August, 1916.
"Harry Edwin" ate a grouse last night and drank many glasses of port. You can imagine the sort of grumpy commensal that he is to-day.
A. T.
"Harry Edwin."
To see.
23. 8. 16.
Seen and approved.
H. E. P.
. . . Don't overbathe, he adds as a postscript. Why be so reckless? You remind me of the London city "clurks" who arrive in Switzerland one evening, run straight up the Matterhorn the next morning. I believe that two per cent of them do not drop dead.
The Sehr Hochwohlgeboren und Verdammter Graf Zeppelin, he writes on 25. 18. 16, did some damage last night at Greenwich, Blackwall (a power-station) etc. For the rest, no news. I am picking up not wholly unconsidered trifles at the Wellington and benefiting your Uncle
