have told the Dean that I cannot accept
his hospitality, and that I am going with Mr. Wills to the inn,
therefore I shall be absolutely at your disposal, and shall be more than
disappointed if you don't stay with us. As the time approaches will you
let me know your arrangements, and whether Mr. Wills can bespeak any
rooms for you in arranging for me? Georgy will give you our address in
Paris as soon as we shall have settled there. We shall leave here, I
think, in rather less than a month from this time.

You know my state of mind as well as I do, indeed, if you don't know it
much better, it is not the state of mind I take it to be. How I work,
how I walk, how I shut myself up, how I roll down hills and climb up
cliffs; how the new story is everywhere--heaving in the sea, flying with
the clouds, blowing in the wind; how I settle to nothing, and wonder (in
the old way) at my own incomprehensibility. I am getting on pretty well,
have done the first two numbers, and am just now beginning the third;
which egotistical announcements I make to you because I know you will be
interested in them.

All the house send their kindest loves. I think of inserting an
advertisement in _The Times_, offering to submit the Plornishghenter to
public competition, and to receive fifty thousand pounds if such another
boy cannot be found, and to pay five pounds (my fortune) if he can.

Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

FOLKESTONE, _Sunday, Sept. 30th, 1855._

MY DEAR COLLINS,

Welcome from the bosom of the deep! If a hornpipe will be acceptable to
you at any time (as a reminder of what the three brothers were always
doing), I shall be, as the chairman says at Mr. Evans's, "happy to
oblige."

I have almost finished No. 3, in which I have relieved my indignant soul
with a scarifier. Sticking at it day after day, I am the incompletest
letter-writer imaginable--seem to have no idea of holding a pen for any
other purpose but that book. My fair Laura has not yet reported
concerning Paris, but I should think will have done so before I see you.
And now to that point. I purpose being in town on _Monday, the 8th_,
when I have promised to dine with Forster. At the office, between
half-past eleven and one that day, I will expect you, unless I hear
from you to the contrary. Of course the H. W. stories are at your
disposition. If you should have