"Dear Tom,—

"I am glad you are going abroad. You see I can be unselfish. How I wish I were going! Of course you mean to take notes on the way. For Heaven's sake, if you do, don't bore us with re-vamping the travelers' guide-book, like all your predecessors; don't prate stereotyped stupidities about Madonnas, and Venuses, and Gladiators, or go mad over a bit of Vesuvius lava, or wear Mont Blanc or the Rhine threadbare. Spare us also all egotistical descriptions of your dinners and breakfasts with foreign literary lions, and great lords and ladies. Strike out a new path, 'an thou lovest me, Hal, or I will write your book down with one dash of my puissant goose-quill.

"Mrs. John has gone to the dogs. Well, listen, and I will tell you. As John's allowance to her grew fitful, so did my attentions; a man can not live on air you know, or waste his time where it will not pay. Mrs. John pouted, and I whistled. Mrs. John coaxed, and I sulked. Mrs. John took to drinking, and I took French leave, making love to little Kate, who, I hear, has lately had a fortune left her. Well, I had quite lost sight of old Mrs. John for some months; I only knew that her husband was a hanger-on at Gripp's gambling-house, and, like all steady fellows when they break loose, was out-heroding Herod in every sort of dissipation, leaving Mrs. John to take care of herself.

"Well, the other night Harry and I—you remember Harry? that clever dog who always beat us at billiards—Harry and I were coming home about midnight, when we came across a policeman dragging off a woman, who was swearing at him like a privateersman. That was nothing to us, you know, or would not have been, had I not heard my name mentioned. I turned my head; the light from the gas-lamp fell full upon her bloated face, and, by Jove! if it was not old Mrs. John! her clothes half torn off her in the drunken scuffle, looking like the very witch of Endor. Wasn't it a joke? She died that night, at the station-house, of delirium tremens, shrieking for 'John,' and 'Rose,' and 'Finels,' and the deuce knows who. So we go. Have you seen the new danseuse, Felissitimi? If not, do so by all means when she comes to Baltimore. She will dance straight into your heart with her first pas. I'm off, like all the world, to see her.

"As ever, yours,
"Finels."