T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 119

To Colonel R. Buxton. Mount Batten. 7. IV. 33 Dear Robin The R.A.F. own me until 1935, so that may well carry me on till I am ripe for my cottage , and peace. No other job really appeals to me. When I finish with the R.A.F. I finish altogether, I hope. The cottage is being worked on, vigorously.The kitchen is being shelved for books, and then only the bath remains to be installed.I hope to put in the bath, a pump for water and a boiler, out of the profits of the U.S.A. lottery. I get a royalty on this, and some...thing over 11,000 have been sold: that should bring in 1600 dollars, nearly £400 by my reckoning. If America does not suddenly go bust. Against this must be set the £200 I have given to Marson, to save off bankruptcy from him.Remain enough, I hope, to square me and complete the cottage; in which I should be ... able to live, thanks to those investments you made for me: though there one has to reckon with a possi...lity of inflation...prices climbing. Life is complicated, always, if one looks more than inches ahead! However I have lived my long enough, now, on my R.A.F. pay, and have learned to manage cheaply. They tell me Geoffrey Salmond is dying. Is it true? I liked him so much. Yours T.E.S. What about the Trustees income tax? What does it ... come to now, and can you pay it?