No, I am not fastidious, because I _dis_like very few people (those might be called enemies); and I like a great many for their good qualities without liking their society (those are my acquaintances); and then I like a great many more for good qualities, or agreeableness, or their affection for me (those are my friends); and amongst those are a chosen few particularly _perfect_, combining the three advantages, and those are my intimate friends. And unless I can be with either of the two last classes, I have not a sufficient love of society not to prefer being alone. But I do not at all despise or dislike those I do not wish to be with,--quite the contrary. I respect them to the greatest degree, only I do not care about them, and I cannot praise them as I do the others. Your system of general praise would bring you by degrees to think it equally pleasant to meet Sir Gore Ouseley and Mr. Luttrell, Mr. Lushington[298] and Lord Alvanley, and you would like me to say Harriet Baring is as pleasant an incident at a dinner as yourself. No thank you; I prefer my distinctions. The dark shadows of _bore_ bring out the lights of agreeableness, and I like to _perceive_ a difference, even if I do not act upon it. However, do not let us argue by letter; there is no room for it. My dear, my Irish journey is defunct, dead, deceased, annihilated, and I shall follow its example if things go on so. You may, if your English papers follow you, have seen that a man of the name of Austin[299] has _defaulted_ from Greenwich Hospital, after having cheated it to a great amount. It is not worth telling you the story, besides, I have thought of nothing else till I am sick of it; but it has worried and annoyed George, who is Auditor of the Accounts, to a degree that I cannot express. Austin has been taken at Limerick, but that does very little good, and only gives the additional trouble of arranging the manner of prosecuting him, which will be a difficult business, as our laws, according to the accurate observations I have made on them for many years, are calculated chiefly for the protection and encouragement of crime; and besides encouraging husbands to kill their wives, and masters their apprentices, have had an eye to the safety of Austin, and all the thousands of pounds that were found in his trunk cannot be touched. I do not precisely see the justice of his taking our Irish journey, and leaving us to settle his accounts, but I suppose it is all right. The investigation of the whole business has been put into George’s hands, and there is so much that is disagreeable in it, besides confining him to the neighbourhood of Greenwich, that he has been very low, poor fellow! But like a sensible man, he sent for me to keep up his spirits; and we have been here the last three weeks, and shall be here a fortnight longer, and then I fear we shall have to go to London.