Gents like you, if I get the Estate shall never cease to Think well of you and mean While how full of Trouble I am _Often Thinking Of Death_ which is the End of Every Thing And then in that Case who will the Property Go to Seeing I Leave never a Brother or Sister Behind me. And Therefore Them That w^d Get it I Feel Sure of w^d Not do So well by you (if You will Only believe Me) So Gents. This is All at present That I will Make so Bold to trouble you With About my Unhappy Affairs Only to say That am _used_ most Intolerably Bad now In The Shop quite Tyranicall And Mr. Tag-Rag as Set Them All Against Me and I shall Never Get Another Situat^n for want of a Char^r which he will give me say^g noth^g at Present of the Sort of Victules w^h give me Now to Eat Since Monday last, For Which am Sure the Devil must have Come In to That Gentleman (Mr. Tag-rag, he was only himself in a Situation in Holborn once, gett^g the Business by marry^g the widow w^h wonder At for he is nothing Particular to Look At.) I am y^rs Humbly to Command Till Death (always Humbly Begging pardon for the bad Conduct w^h was guilty of when In Liquor Especially On an Empty Stomach, Having Taken Nothing all that Day excepting what I could not Eat,) "Your's most Resp^y "TITTLEBAT TITMOUSE. "P. S. Will Bring That young Man with Tears In his Eyes to Beg y^r pardon Over again If You Like w^h will Solemnly Swear if Required That he did It all of His _own_ Head And that Have given It him For it in the Way That is Written Above And humbly Trust You Will make Me So happy Once more by writing To Me (if it is only a Line) To say You Have Thought No more of it T. T. No. 9 Closet C^t. Oxford Street. 14/7/18--" This exquisitely-skilful epistle might indeed have brought tears into Mr. Quirk's eyes, if he had been _used_ to the melting mood, which he was not; having never been seen actually to shed a tear but once--when five-sixths of his little bill of costs (£196, 15s. 4d.) were taxed off in an auction on a Bill of Exchange for £13.[7] As it was, he tweedled the letter about in his hands for about five minutes, in a musing mood, and then stepped with it into Mr. Gammon's room. That gentleman took the letter with an air of curiosity, and read it over; at every sentence (if indeed a sentence there was in it) bursting into soft laughter. "Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed on concluding it--"a comical gentleman, Mr. Titmouse, upon my honor!" "Funny--isn't it rather?" interposed Mr. Quirk, standing with his hands fumbling about in his breeches pockets. "What a crawling despicable little rascal!--ha, ha, ha!" "Why--I don't quite say that, either," said Quirk, doubtingly--"I--don't exactly look at it in _that_ light!"