55 Queensbury St
Carlton
30 August 1886
My dear Chris
I received your letter the other day. I did answer your other letter although I must own I have been very long in writing since then. I hope that you will get on well there not for my own sake although I should be very glad to join you there.
I have had one letter from home in the last six months and that was from Father. It was a very short one and he asked me two or three times why I had not written. I suppose my first letter arrived just after he sent me his.
I still have the same work at the store, making messes &c. I look forward to the arrival of the ship now eagerly. Father said in his letter that he did not intend me to remain at Rocke Tompsitt’s but I wonder where I shall go.
A little while ago the foreman of the factory was away for two or three weeks. It was amazing to see how much better the other fellow and I got on with the work without him. He was rather astonished when he came back to find that everything was nice and clean and that we were not at all behind in the lines as we always are when he is there.
Chris Tatham and I have both been well all through the winter. He now gets 45 shillings a week but he does manage to save any of it. His great is to get a house and really he wants me to stay with him because he could not do it singly. The lodgings are very comfortable.
I don’t know if you know that I wear eye-glasses. I have always been short-sighted as you know and two or three years ago I was obliged to have something. I suppose spectacles would have been better but then the price is so different.
I will write again soon.
I remain your affectionate Brother
A B Elmslie