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[[underlined]] To Mother, February 3, 1926 [[/underlined]]: Here is some news from Willie that is so wonderful that I can scarcely believe it's true. Mr. Fritschner is going to give us five thousand dollars for a wedding present! It means that we can be married next winter as far as any financial question is concerned, for I am making tremendous strides here as far as my savings program goes. This week I shall have made about forty dollars, or enough to pay my living expenses here for a week and my fare to Syracuse and return and still have about ten dollars to boot. It doesn't take long to accumulate a hundred dollars when one can put away an average of about twenty a week, which looks possible here including my traveling expenses at that.

[[underlined]] To Mother, February 5, 1926 [[/underlined]]: At the request of Mark Hanna, I have been asked to take a six months "sign-up" in the special railway motor test (the test I am now working on). Evidently I have won the favor of Mr. Hanna who, in his capacity of executive engineer of the Railway Motor Engineering Dept., is a very influential man in this business. He wants me to spend some additional time on motor work, so I think it very wise to do it. There are many advantages: Having been chosen for a sign-up, which means a longer period on some particular test doing more responsible work, is in one's favor when getting a job in the engineering department, and in this case, with Mr. Hanna sponsoring it, it practically assures a job; there is an increase in pay that is permanent i.e. one doesn't go back to the former rate at the end of six months if one goes back on regular test. One gets the best work, and responsibility. It means I shall have to be here a month or two longer than I expected but that isn't serious for the work will be superior to what I would get in Schenectady and I can get home easily from here. I really feel quite pleased with the turn for it is a recognition, or rather a sign of progress, along my chosen path.

[[underlineD]] To Mother, February 5, 1926 [[/underlineD]]: I want to tell you about last night at the Duttons. It is evident that his great hobby is books and writing. He is unquestionably very cultured but as I told you, he occasionally uses some terribly ungrammatical expression like "he come" and "you was;" and he is one of the two Americans who were elected to membership in the British Society of Authors in the last three years. He practiced law for a year, and was editor of an Albany newspaper at one time besides teaching history at RPI in Troy for about eight months. He is a graduate of Brown. Last night the subject of intolerence was discussed and Mr. D discoursed on this wise: "You know what Henry Mencken says. He says that the whole thing that's the matter with Christians is that they're so damned funny! (At this Allende and I nearly exploded, it was so perfectly killing to hear him say it, and so utterly unexpected too.) You probably read in the papers recently about a Buddist priest who has been in this country advocating that we adopt Buddism, the only religion that has really