“Mr O’Toole says, ‘Now that I’m found out, I’ll confess everything,’ and I think so good a precept should not be lost. In fact, I think it is better to keep the disguise with respect to ‘Tony’ as long as I can, and I have thought of giving a mock name--my grandmother’s, Arthur Helsham--in the title. I have been lying like a Turk for this year back, and I have really no face to own now that I wrote the book. Reason number two: there will be that other story of mine completed nearly at the same time, and you know better than myself how prone the world is to cry out, ‘over-writing himself,’ ‘more rubbish,’ &c. Thirdly: even they who discover me will be more generous to me in my mask (you know it’s a Carnival rule never to kick a domino); and as for the outsiders, they’ll say, ‘This young author, with a certain resemblance to Mr Lever, but with a freshness and buoyancy which Mr Lever has long since taken leave of,’ &c. &c. &c. “Now so much for my notions; but you shall do exactly as you like, and what will, to your own thinking, be best for the book’s success. “God help Tony! If he doesn’t marry the right woman it has been for no want of anxiety on my part: I have given him to each of them every alternate day and night for the last month. But it must be Dolly, unless he should take a sudden fancy for Mrs Maxwell. I’ll send you the finale very soon, and you’ll have time to say your say on it before it be irrevocable.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 13, 1864. “On second thoughts I send you off the enclosed at once. One chap, more will finish ‘Tony,’ but I want to have your judgment on these before I write the last. I have worked nearly two nights through to do this. I am uncommonly anxious--more than I like to tell--that the book should be a success. I know well nothing will be wanting on _your part,_ and I am all the more eager to do _mine_. Write to me as soon as you can, for I shall lie on my oars till I hear from you, except so far as correcting the volumes of T. and O’D. “It has been, with all its fatigues, a great mercy to me to have had this hard work, for I have great--the greatest--anxieties around me, and but for the necessity for exertion, I don’t think I could bear up.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 16, 1864. “I have never quitted ‘Tony’ since I wrote to you, and here goes the result! I have finished him, unless you opine that a few more lines are needed, though what they ought to detail is not usually thought fit for publication.