The simple fact is this, Tom Purcell: we live in an age of universal cant, and I swallow all _your_ shams on the easy condition that you swear to _mine_, and whenever I hear people praising the present age, and extolling its wonderful progress, and all that, I just think of all the quackery I see advertised in the newspapers, and sigh heartily to myself at our degradation! Why, man, the "Patent Pills for the Cure of Cancer," and the Agapemone, would disgrace the middle ages! And it is not a little remarkable that England, so prone to place herself at the head of civilization, is exactly the very metropolis of all this humbug! To come back to ourselves, I have to report that James arrived here a couple of days ago. He followed that scoundrel "the Baron" for thirty hours, and only desisted from the pursuit when his horse could go no farther. The police authorities mainly contributed to the escape of the fugitive, by detaining James on every possible occasion, and upon any or no pretext. The poor fellow reached Freyburg dead beat, and without a sou in his pocket; but good luck would have it that Lord George Tiverton had just arrived there, so that by his aid he came on here, where they both made their appearance at breakfast on Tuesday morning. Lord George, I suspect, had not made a successful campaign of it lately; though in what he has failed--if it be failure--I have no means of guessing. He looks a little out at elbows, however, and travels without a servant. In spirits and bearing I see no change in him; but these fellows, I have remarked, never show depression, and india-rubber itself is not so elastic as a bad character! I don't half fancy his companionship for James; but I know well that this opinion would be treated by the rest of the family as downright heresy; and certainly he is an amusing dog, and it is impossible to resist liking him; but there lies the very peril I am afraid of. If your loose fish, as the slang phrase calls them, were disagreeable chaps,--prosy, selfish, sententious,--vulgar in their habits, and obtrusive in their manners, one would run little risk of contamination; but the reverse is the case, Tom,--the very reverse! Meet a fellow that speaks every tongue of the Continent, dresses to perfection, rides and drives admirably, a dead shot with the pistol, a sure cue at billiards,--if he be the delight of every circle he goes into,--look out sharp in the "Times," and the odds are that there's a handsome reward offered for him, and he's either a forger or a defaulter. The truth is, a man may be ill-mannered as a great lawyer or a great physician; he may make a great figure in the field or the cabinet; there may be no end to his talents as a geometrician or a chemist; it's only your adventurer must be well-bred, and swindling is the soldiery profession to which a man must bring fascinating manners, a good address, personal advantages, and the power of pleasing. I own to you, Tom Purcell, I like these fellows, and