The patient shook his head, rubbed his trembling hand upon his stomach, bolted the oyster, and fell back—­dead.  They buried him in the prison yard, and paved his grave with oyster-shells.

We are all well and hearty, and have already begun to wonder what time next year you and Mrs. Felton and Dr. Howe will come across the briny sea together.  To-morrow we go to the seaside for two months.  I am looking out for news of Longfellow, and shall be delighted when I know that he is on his way to London and this house.

I am bent upon striking at the piratical newspapers with the sharpest edge I can put upon my small axe, and hope in the next session of Parliament to stop their entrance into Canada.  For the first time within the memory of man, the professors of English literature seem disposed to act together on this question.  It is a good thing to aggravate a scoundrel, if one can do nothing else, and I think we can make them smart a little in this way....

I wish you had been at Greenwich the other day, where a party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones I have refused.  C. was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, after singing all manner of marine songs, wound up the entertainment by coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton of mine, on his head, to the mingled delight and indignation of the metropolitan police.  We were very jovial indeed; and I assure you that I drank your health with fearful vigor and energy.

On board that ship coming home I established a club, called the United Vagabonds, to the large amusement of the rest of the passengers.  This holy brotherhood committed all kinds of absurdities, and dined always, with a variety of solemn forms, at one end of the table, below the mast, away from all the rest.  The captain being ill when we were three or four days out, I produced my medicine-chest and recovered him.  We had a few more sick men after that, and I went round “the wards” every day in great state, accompanied by two Vagabonds, habited as Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer, bearing enormous rolls of plaster and huge pairs of scissors.  We were really very merry all the way, breakfasted in one party at Liverpool, shook hands, and parted most cordially....

    Affectionately

    Your faithful friend,

    C.D.

P.S.  I have looked over my journal, and have decided to produce my American trip in two volumes.  I have written about half the first since I came home, and hope to be out in October.  This is “exclusive news,” to be communicated to any friends to whom you may like to intrust it, my dear F.

What a capital epistolary pen Dickens held!  He seems never to have written the shortest note without something piquant in it; and when he attempted a letter, he always made it entertaining from sheer force of habit.