, but mair successfu'.

Dear Thomson, have I ony money? If I have, _send it_, for the loard's
sake.

JOHNSTONE.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 13, 1884._

MY DEAR BOY,--A thousand thanks for the _Moliere_. I have already read,
in this noble presentment, _La Comtesse d'Escarbaguas_, _Le Malade
Imaginaire_, and a part of _Les Femmes Savantes_; I say, Poquelin took
damned good care of himself: Argan and Arysule, what parts! Many thanks
also for John Silver's pistol; I recognise it; that was the one he gave
Jim Hawkins at the mouth of the pit; I shall get a plate put upon it to
that effect.

My birthday was a great success; I was better in health; I got
delightful presents; I received the definite commission from the P.M.G.,
and began to write the tale; and in the evening Bob arrived, a simple
seraph. We have known each other ten years; and here we are, too, like
the pair that met in the infirmary: why can we not mellow into kindness
and sweetness like Bob? What is the reason? Does nature, even in my
octogenarian carcase, run too strong that I must be still a bawler and a
brawler and a treader upon corns? You, at least, have achieved the
miracle of embellishing your personal appearance to that point that,
unless your mother is a woman of even more perspicacity than I suppose,
it is morally impossible that she can recognise you. When I saw you ten
years ago, you looked rough and--kind of stigmatised, a look of an
embittered political shoemaker; where is it now? You now come waltzing
around like some light-hearted monarch; essentially jovial, essentially
royal; radiant of smiles. And in the meanwhile, by a complementary
process, I turn into a kind of hunchback with white hair! The devil.

Well, let us be thankful for our mercies; in these ten years what a
change from the cell in the hospital, and the two sick boys in the next
bed, to the influence, the recognition, the liberty, and the happiness
of to-day! Well, well; fortune is not so blind as people say; you dreed
a good long weird; but you have got into a fine green paddock now to
kick your heels in. And I, too, what a difference; what a difference in
my work, in my situation, and unfortunately, also in my health! But one
need not complain of a pebble in the shoe, when by mere justice one
should rot in a dungeon.

Many thanks to both of you; long life to our friendship, and that means,
I do most firmly believe, to these cl