Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] Feb 9 Dearest Mother. I've been spending a happy day getting in to my new suite in the Political Office. It really is very nice. I have a big sitting room and a dressing room. One end of the sitting room is screened off for my bed - until the roof is one's bedroom as it soon will be. It is such an immense blessing to have a sitting room of one's own. I have been so miserably uncomfortable without any place to write or work in at night. I have my own meals, breakfast and dinner, that's to say, for I shall go on having tea with the others as I have done up to now. We don't lunch, some sandwiches and a cup of coffee are brought in to us at midday so that one need not interrupt one's work. I find it quite a good arrangement. The one drawback of my new abode is that it has been finished for exactly a month and the walls are only rough plastered; consequently they never cease sending down a rain of dust. However one can't have everything. Lawley, Arthur