Read it through once

May, ‘78.—Another of those apparently trifling things has happened to me which puzzle and perplex all men every now and then, keep them thinking an hour or two, and leave their minds barren of explanation or solution at last. Here it is—and it looks inconsequential enough, I am obliged to say. A few days ago I said: ‘It must be that Frank Millet doesn’t know we are in Germany, or he would have written long before this. I have been on the point of dropping him a line at least a dozen times during the past six weeks, but I always decided to wait a day or two longer, and see if we shouldn’t hear from him. But now I _will_ write.’ And so I did. I directed the letter to Paris, and thought, ‘_Now_ we shall hear from him before this letter is fifty miles from Heidelberg—it always happens so.’