MASTER'S LODGINGS
 
      ELIOT HOUSE 
 
      CAMBRIDGE 
 
      February 17, 1939
 
      
 
 
Dear Franklin:
 
      
 
 
A thousand thanks for your letter. I shall relay a  %copy to 
      Trevelyan, but I shall tell him that it was marked "Private'' 
      so that he will use it with discretion.
 
      
 
 
I think you are a bit hard on "the average Britisher". 
      Some of his itinerant exports over here are intolerable -- I 
      see shoals of them and know where of I speak -- but the bulk 
      of the stay-at-homes are of better quality. The fact is I think 
      that a lot of those who come over here for the first time don't 
      quite know how to behave with us, and hit the wrong note at the 
      outset.
 
      I hope you will get a lot of fish.
 
      
 
 
Yours always,
 
      Roger B. Merriman
 
      His Excellency the President of the United States 
 
      Executive Mansion
 
      Washington, D.C.