I 'm not much up to this as yet; my forte is écarté, at which I am the terror of these fellows; and when the races come on next month, I think my knowledge of horseflesh will teach them a thing or two. I have already a third share in a splendid horse called Number Nip, bred out of Barnabas by a Middleton mare; he's engaged for the Lacken Cup and the Salle Sweepstakes, and I 'm backing him even against the field for everything I can get. If you 'd like to net a fifty without risk, say so before the tenth, and I 'll do it for you. So that you see, Bob, without De Porquet's Grammar and "Ollendorff's Method," my time is tolerably full. In fact, if the day had forty-eight hours, I have something to fill every one of them. There would be nothing but pleasure in this life, but for certain drawbacks, the worst of which is that I am not alone here. You have no idea, Bob, to what subterfuges I 'm reduced, to keep my family out of sight of my grand acquaintances. Sometimes I call the governor my guardian; sometimes an uncle, so rich that I am forced to put up with all his whims and caprices. Egad! it went so far, f other day, that I had to listen to a quizzing account of my aunt's costume at a concert, and hear my mother shown up as a _précieuse ridicule_ of the first water. There's no keeping them out of public places, too; and how they know of all the various processions, Te Deums, and the like I cannot even guess. My own metamorphosis is so complete that I have cut them twice dead, in the Park; and no later than last night, I nearly ran over my father in the Allée Verte with my tandem leader, and heard the whole story this morning at breakfast, with the comforting assurance that "he 'd know the puppy again, and will break every bone in his body if he catches him." In consequence of which threat, I have given orders for a new beard and moustache of the Royal Albert hue, instead of black, which I have worn heretofore. I must own, though, it is rather a bore to stand quietly by and see fellows larking your sister; but Mary Anne is perfectly incorrigible, notwithstanding all I have said to her. Cary's safety lies in hating the Continent and all foreigners, and that is just as absurd.