TALBOT7868

My dear Henry

Charles wishes to have some conversation with you about a Watch. – He naturally feels the want of one – and at his age it is quite a reasonable request. I encouraged him to ask you about it – and I said I would write you my own ideas on the same subject – Charles says that he would rather have a silver watch than incur the responsibility of a gold one – and he possesses a silver chain to wear with it on great occasions – not perhaps suitable for ordinary wear. Charles wishes it to be what he calls a hunting watch wh. I understand to be constructed with a case to protect the glass & face thereof. Now the question I want you to consider is, whether a silver watch will be as suitable for him when he comes to man’s estate; & will please him a few years hence as much as it does at present? – I know nothing of the value of these things – but as Charles suggests, there is probably a great difference between the two – and he does not wish you to give him an unnecessary <sic> expensive one. I think you have a watchmaker of your own in London whom you have sufficient confidence in to trust with an order, without seeing the article – Would it not be a good plan to send Charles to him on his way to Harrow on Wednesday – with a note from yourself – and allow Charles partly to consult his own taste in the choice of it? – I submit this to your wiser judgment,

and am your affectionate

Constance –

Randolph Crescent

Monday May 2^d