bylon. Truly, it's a wonderfu' place--wi' its
palaces and dens; its rich an' its puir; its miles upon miles o' hooses
an' shops; its thoosands on thoosands o' respectable folk, an' its
hundred o' thoosands o' thieves an' pickpockets an' burglars--to say
naething o' its prisons an' lawyers an' waux dolls!

"But I'm haverin'. Ye'll be gled t' hear that Colonel Brentwood--him
that befreended me--is a' richt. His lawyer turned oot to be a leear
an' a swindler. The will that was to turn the Colonel oot o' a' his
possessions is a forgery. His bonny bairn Rosa, is, like mysel', gaun'
to be mairried; an' as the Colonel has nae mair bairns, he's gaun' to
devote himsel'--so his wife says--to `considerin' the poor.' Frae my
personal observation o' Lunnon, he'll hae mair than enough to consider,
honest man!

"In my last letter I gied ye a full accoont o' the fire, but I didna
tell 'e that it was amang the chimley-pots and bleezes that I was moved
to what they ca' `pop the question' to my Susy. It was a daft-like
thing to do, I confess, especially for a sedate kin' o' man like me;
but, woman, a man's no jist himsel' at sik a time! After a', it was a
graund climax to my somewhat queer sort o' coortin'. The only thing I'm
feart o' in Bawbylon is that the wee crater Tammy Splint should come to
ken aboot it, for I wad niver hear the end o't if he did. Ye see,
though he was there a' the time, he didna ken what I was about.
Speakin' o' that, the bairn has been made a flunkey by the Colonel--a
teeger they ca' him. What's mair surprisin' yet is, that he has ta'en
the puir thief Trumps--alias Rodgers--into his hoosehold likewise, and
made _him_ a flunkey. Mrs Brentwood--Dory, as he ca's her--didna quite
like the notion at first; but the Colonel's got a wonderfu' wheedlin'
wey wi' him, an' whan he said, `If you an' I have been redeemed an'
reinstated, why should not Rodgers?' Dory, like a wise woman, gied in.
The argement, ye ken, was unanswerable. Onywie, he's in plush now, an
white stockin's.

"An' that minds me that they've putt the wee laddie Splint into blue
tights wi' brass buttons. He just looks like an uncanny sort o'
speeder! It's a daft-like dress for onything but a puggy, but the
bairn's as prood o't as if it was quite reasonable. It maitters little
what he putts on, hooiver, for he wad joke an' cut capers, baith
pheesical an' intellectual, I verily believe, if he was gaun to be
hanged!

"My faither-in-law to