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[Page] 56
[continued from page 55]

evening. In Newcastle I visited several curio shops
and bought for 15/- a small glass tumbler
enamelled with a bird catcher, a cage on his
back & and a staff & some other object in his hand.
I omitted to record that in Dundee I obtained
for 5/- a nice little tumbler engraved with hops
& barley & the letters I.W. My work finished
at Newcastle I went on to London & joined Jocelyn
at the Rembrandt Hotel. which we found as
comfortable as ever. My principal reason for
going to London was to see my aged Uncle Robert
who recently had a bad accident. Though he
has evidently failed a good deal, for the age of
86 or 87 he is a marvel. His mind is remarkably
clear & fresh and he quoted to me with no difficulty
almost the whole of Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”
We were greatly elated at the prices being asked
for old glass in London. We saw one small
sweetmeat glass priced £25 - I have 5 similar
which cost me on an average not more than 7/6 each
A glass resembling my tallest baluster stem glass
was marked £100! Such prices have induced
me to part with a few duplicates & I have
sent off to Lord Carmichael, who offered to
sell them for me - 3 small sweetmeat glasses,
2 baluster stemmed glasses, a glass boot,

a cut glass candle stick and two odd pieces – the
whole cost me originally about 50/-. It will be interesting
to see what I get for them. I purchased in London
from Webster, to whose shop I was taken by Girdwood,
four enamelled glass bottles for 25/- 1 with a fox
carrying some birds in a basket on his back, one opaque
white, another, a small one, with chamfered & fluted angles
& the fourth a blue one with white wavy lines on it.
From London we visited Mary at school and
found her very happy. we also had Sandy up to
town for Saturday afternoon & evening. We had
an excellent lunch at the Trocadero & afterwards
saw a perfectly rotten comic opera of Sandy’s
choosing, called the the “Lilac Domino.” We returned
from London on the 8th Oct. the train very long
& very crowded but we arrived to time. Yesterday
I picked up at Sibbald’s a glass toddy lifter
for 7/6! I was asked 30/- for one in Newcastle.
Today I have invested in a number of pieces of
glass at Miss Jones’s meaning it to be a re-in:
:vestment of the money, or a small part of it, which
I hope to get for the pieces I am selling.
The war is progressing at a great rate. day
after day brings news of fresh victories & so many
fresh names are appearing in the communiqués
that it is difficult to keep abreast of the news.
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