Yours affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Friday, April 18th, 1862._

MY DEAR THORNBURY,

The Bow Street runners ceased out of the land soon after the
introduction of the new police. I remember them very well as standing
about the door of the office in Bow Street. They had no other uniform
than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons (I am not even now sure that that
was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was
indispensable, and the slang name for them was "redbreasts," in
consequence.

They kept company with thieves and the like, much more than the
detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no
doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. It was a very
slack institution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow
Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the
police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume
maker's, or the next door to it.

Field, who advertises the Secret Enquiry Office, was a Bow Street
runner, and can tell you all about it; Goddard, who also advertises an
enquiry office, was another of the fraternity. They are the only two I
know of as yet existing in a "questionable shape."

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Baylis.]

GAD'S HILL, ETC., _Wednesday, July 2nd, 1862._

MY DEAR MR. BAYLIS,

I have been in France, and in London, and in other parts of Kent than
this, and everywhere but here, for weeks and weeks. Pray excuse my not
having (for this reason specially) answered your kind note sooner.

After carefully cross-examining my daughter, I do NOT believe her to be
worthy of the fernery. Last autumn we transplanted into the shrubbery a
quantity of evergreens previously clustered close to the front of the
house, and trained more ivy about the wall and the like. When I ask her
where she would have the fernery and what she would do with it, the
witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused, and says: "Perhaps it
would be better not to have it at all." I am quite confident that the
constancy of the young person is not to be trusted, and that she had
better attach her fernery to one of her chateaux in Spain, or one of her
English castles in the air. None the less do I th