“The whole story of R N. F. (Robert Napoleon Flynn, his real name) is an unexaggerated fact, and I have only culled a very few of the traits known to me, and not given, as perhaps I ought, a rather droll scene I had with him myself at Spezzia. The man was originally a barrister, and actually appointed Chief-Justice of Tobago by Lord Normanby, and as such presented to the Queen at the Levée. The appointment was rescinded, however, and the fellow sent adrift. “I have met a large number of these fellows of every nation, but never one with the same versatility as this, nor with the same hearty enjoyment of his own rascality. Dickens never read over a successful proof with one-half the zest Flynn has felt when sending off--as I have known him to do--a quizzing letter to a Police Prefect from whose clutches he had just escaped by crossing a frontier. He is, in fact, the grand _artiste_, and he feels it. “I am glad you like ‘O’Dowd’: first of all, they are the sort of things I can do best. I have seen a great deal of life, and have a tolerably good memory for strange and out-of-the-way people, and I am sure such sketches are far more my ‘speciality’ than story-writing. “I assure you your cheery notes do me more service than my sulph.-quinine, and I have so much of my old schoolboy blood in me that I do my tasks better with praise than after a caning. “Your sketch of the French Legitimist amused me much. The insolence of these rascals is the fine thing about them, as t’other day I heard one of our own amongst them (the uncle of a peer, and a great name too) reply, when I found him playing billiards at the club and asked him how he was getting on: ‘Badly, Lever, badly, or you wouldn’t find me playing half-crown pool with three snobs that I’d not have condescended to know ten years ago.’ And this _the three snobs_ had to listen to! “I am far from sure Grant was not ‘done’ by Flynn. But t’other night Labouchere (Lord Taunton’s nephew and heir, who is the L. of the story) met Grant here, and we all pressed G. to confess he had been ‘walked into,’ but he only grew red and confused, and as we had laughed so much at F.’s victims, he would not own to having been of the number. “The Napoleon paper is very good, and perhaps not exaggerated. It is the best sketch of the campaign I ever read, and only wants a further allusion to the intentions of the 4th corps under Prince Napoleon to be a perfect history of the event. “‘Schleswig-Holstein’ admirable. I am proud of my company and _au raison._” _To Dr Burbidge._ “Casa Capponi, _Wednesday_, March 1864. “I thank you sincerely for the trouble you have had about my proof: honestly, I only wanted a criticism, but I forgot you had not seen the last previous part. As to what is to _come_, you know, I am sorry to say it, just as much as I do.