If I was n't ashamed to write them, I 'd tell you two or three of his stories, but I will when we meet; and now with my hearty blessin' and love, I remane yours to command, Betty Cobb. What's this I heer about one of the M'Carthys dyin', and levin' his money to the mistress? Get the news right for me, Shusan dear, for I mane to ask for more wagis if it's true, and if Mrs. D. won't decrease them, I'll lave the sarvis. Mamsel Virginy towl me last nite there was a duchés here that wants a confidenshal made to tache her only daughter English, and that's exactly the thing to shoot me; five hundred franks a year is equal to twenty pounds, all eatin' and washin', not to mention the hoith of respect from all the men-ials in the house. I'm takin' Frinsh lessons from ould Gregory every evenin', and he says I 'll be in my "accidents" next week. LETTER XX. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. You guessed rightly, my dear Bob; my letter to Vickars has turned out confoundedly ill, though I must say, all from his total want of gentlemanlike feeling. To my ineffable horror the other morning, the post arrived with a large packet for the governor, containing my "strictly private and confidential" epistle, which this infernal son of a pen-wiper sends coolly back to be read by my father. Matters were not going on exactly quite smooth before. We had had a rather stormy sitting of the Cabinet the evening previous on the estimates, which struck the President of the Council as out of all bounds; and yet, all things considered, were reasonable enough. You know, Bob, we are a strongish party. Mrs. G. H., with maid and courier; Lord George and man; the Dodd family five, with two native domestics, and two foreign supernumeraries; occupying the first floor of the first hotel at Bonn, with a capital table, and a considerable quantity of wine, of one kind or other; these--without anything that one can call extravagance--swell up a bill, and at the end of a month give it an actually formidable look. "What are these?" said the governor, peering through his glasses at a long battalion of figures at the foot of the score,--"what are these? Groschen, eh?" "Pardon, Monsieur le Comte," said the other, bowing, "dey are Prussian thalers!" I wish you saw his face when he heard it! George and I were obliged to bolt out of the room, or we should have infallibly exploded. "You 'd better go back," said George to me after we had our laugh out; "I 'll take a stroll with the womenkind till you smooth him down a bit." A pleasant office this for me; but there was no help for it, so in I went. The first shock of his surprise was not over as I entered, for he stood holding the bill in one hand, while he pressed the other on his forehead, with a most distracted expression of face. "Do you suspect," said he--"have you any notion of what rate we are living at, James?" "Not the slightest," replied I.