---- elaborately explaining that everything in creation is a
joint-stock company on the other, the inimitable B. by the fire, in
conversation with ----. Well-a-day! I see it all, and smell that
extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre, which bursts
upon me when I swing open the little door in the hall, accompanies me as
I meet perspiring supers in the narrow passage, goes with me up the two
steps, crosses the stage, winds round the third entrance P.S. as I wind,
and escorts me safely into your presence, where I find you unwinding
something slowly round and round your chest, which is so long that no
man can see the end of it.

Oh that you had been at Clarence Terrace on Nina's birthday! Good God,
how we missed you, talked of you, drank your health, and wondered what
you were doing! Perhaps you are Falkland enough (I swear I suspect you
of it) to feel rather sore--just a little bit, you know, the merest
trifle in the world--on hearing that Mrs. Macready looked brilliant,
blooming, young, and handsome, and that she danced a country dance with
the writer hereof (Acres to your Falkland) in a thorough spirit of
becoming good humour and enjoyment. Now you don't like to be told that?
Nor do you quite like to hear that Forster and I conjured bravely; that
a plum-pudding was produced from an empty saucepan, held over a blazing
fire kindled in Stanfield's hat without damage to the lining; that a box
of bran was changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between my
godchild's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill uproar and clapping
of hands that you might have heard it (and I daresay did) in America;
that three half-crowns being taken from Major Burns and put into a
tumbler-glass before his eyes, did then and there give jingling answers
to the questions asked of them by me, and knew where you were and what
you were doing, to the unspeakable admiration of the whole assembly.
Neither do you quite like to be told that we are going to do it again
next Saturday, with the addition of demoniacal dresses from the
masquerade shop; nor that Mrs. Macready, for her gallant bearing always,
and her best sort of best affection, is the best creature I know. Never
mind; no man shall gag me, and those are my opinions.

My dear Macready, the lecturing proposition is not to be thought of. I
have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in giving you my most
strenuous and decided advice against it. Looking only to its effect at
home