Item 03: Oliver Hogue letters, 12 January-19 December 1916 - Page 74

                                                                           Egyppt Somewhere      13.6.16

My  Bonnie Jean

I've just received a letter dated 2.4.16.   It records a shameful pilfering of cream o' the Vale by you & a corresponding increase of  girth, which you are pleased to characterise is the acquisition of a superb figure.   Now I hesitate to praise (the figure) or blame (the theft) at this distance from the scene.   I will content myself with with being very strictly neutral.   If I have any feelings at all (quite compatible with strict neutrality) it is one of the deepest envy - envy that I am not in a position to comandeer some cream myself.   By the bye, what is cream like now a days? Is it still a thick white yellow soft rich fluid?   You see, I've not seen any cream lately.   I had to turn up the dictionary to see what cream is. We get milk here - sometimes.   I mean an alleged milk.   It is a kind of condensed milk .... no cow has seen it for  a long long time. Sometimes it is tinned. Sometimes it comes from Mrs Camel or a lady mud buffalo or a she goat......... So you will readily understand how I envied