“I don’t think I ever conversed with a country practitioner who hadn’t a story or two of ‘foul play,’ and so palpably untrue as to be laughable. In all probability Paterson’s impressions were only strong when he found the woman had died, and it is a very medical error to imagine a skill in prediction which only comes after the event. The world is all subserviency to the doctor when there is an epidemic abroad, and ‘takes it out’ in insult when the weather is fine and the season salubrious. “‘The Spanish fleet’ is not in sight. “Remember I rely upon you to look closely to these last ‘Sir Bs.’ and ‘O’Dowds,’ for I am as near softening of the brain as it is permitted to a consul to be.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 28, 1865. “It seems like a century to me since we heard of each other. Here I am still awaiting the fleet. They were to come on the 27th, and they are to be here positively on the 6th, most positively on the 8th, and as sure as the Lord liveth (I mean the First Lord), on the 12th August. “I have my youngest daughter with me, who keeps me in a perpetual round of croquet, picnics, boat-races, and moonlight rowing-parties. “If you knew, then, the difficulty I have had to write the two chaps. I now send you (my first instalment of Sept. ‘Fossbrooke ‘), you would prize them more certainly than their merit could call for.” _To Mr William Blackwood._ “Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, _Aug_. 6, 1865. “I got your telegram just as I was starting for a picnic, to eat my lobster afterwards with what appetite I might. I suspect (it is mere suspicion) that chap, i., enclosed in an envelope I had borrowed from an American colleague, has gone (through the words ‘U.S. Consulate’ on the corner) to America, and that Sir B. F. is now making the tour of ‘the Union.’ “Rewriting is all very fine; but I have forgotten all I wrote, as I always do, or I should go mad. If Providence had only inflicted me with a memory in proportion to my imagination, I’d have been in Bedlam twenty years ago. I have therefore set to work and written something else. If the other turns up, you may prefer it [‘You pays your money and takes your choice,’ as the apple-women say). “God forgive me, but I grow less wise as I grow older. The old smack of devil-may-care, that sat so easily on me as a boy, keeps dodging me now in grey hairs and making a fool of me; but you’ve read the German story of the fellow whose wooden leg was ‘possessed’ and ran away with him. I haven’t a wooden leg, but I have a wooden stick that plays a like prank with me. “O’Dowd indeed! And _I_ flirting with little Yankee girls, and teaching them to swim! Don’t talk to me of O’Dowd! “Tell your uncle to send me whatever there remains of balance of the last O’Ds., for I am losing my money here like fun, and ashamed to send to my bankers for more.