THE SILVER SPOON 373
actor on the English stage, for his father and mother, who
are no more living, brought him to England quite young.
Interned he was, and his health broken up. He has the
neurasthenic very bad so he cannot be trusted for any
work. Before the war he was always in a part, and we
had some good money ; but this went partly when I was
left with my child alone, and the rest was taken by the
P. T.? and we got very little back, neither of us being
English. What we did get has all been to the doctor, and
for our debts, and for burying our little child, which died
happily, for though I loved it much this life which we
have is not fit for a child to live. We live on my needle,
and that is not earning much, a pound a week and some-
times nothing. The managers will not look at my husband
all these years, because he shakes suddenly, so they think
he drinks, but, Sir, he has not the money to buy it. We
do not know where to turn, or what to do. So I thought,
dear Sir, whether you could do anything for us with the
P. T. ; they have been quite sympatical; but they say
they administrate an order and cannot do more. Or if
you could get my husband some work where he will be in
open air—the doctor say that is what he want. We have
nowhere to go in Germany or in Austria, our well-loved
families being no more alive. I think we are like many,
but I cannot help asking you, Sir, because we want to
keep living if we can, and now we are hardly having any
food. Please to forgive me my writing, and to believe
your very anxious and humble
"ANNA BERGFELD."
£ God help them ! ' thought Michael, under a plane-tree
close to Cleopatra's Needle, but without conviction. For
in his view God was not so much interested in the fate of
individual aliens as the Governor of the Bank of England