"What'll you take for your letters, Giglamps?" called out the little gentleman from the other room; "the Post's in, and here are three for you. Two are from women,--young uns I should say, from the regular ups and downs, and right angles: they look like billyduxes. Give you a bob for them, at a venture! they may be funny. The other is suspiciously like a tick, and ought to be looked shy on. I should advise you not to open it, but to pitch it in the fire: it may save a fit of the blues. If you want any help over shaving, just say so, Giglamps, will you, before I go; and then I'll hold your nose for you, or do anything else that's civil and accommodating. And, when you've done your tumbies, come in to the dove-tart and the spread-eagle." And off went Mr. Bouncer, making terrible noises with his post-horn, in his strenuous but futile endeavours to discover the octaves. Our hero soon concluded his "tumbies" and his dressing (_not_ including the shaving), and made his way to Mr. Bouncer's rooms, where he did full justice to the dove-tart, and admired the spread-eagle so much, that he thought of bribing the confectioner for the recipe to take home as a Christmas-box for his mother. "Well, Giglamps," said Mr. Bouncer, when breakfast was over, "to spare the blushes on your venerable cheeks, I won't even so much as refer to the billy duxes; but, I'll only ask, what was the damage of the tick?" "Oh! it was not a bill," replied Mr. Verdant Green; "it was a letter about a dog from the man of whom I bought Mop last term." "What! Filthy Lucre?" cried Mr. Bouncer; "well, I thought, somehow, I knew the fist! he writes just as if he'd learnt from imitating his dogs' hind-legs. Let's have a sight of it if it ain't private and confidential!" "Oh dear no! on the contrary, I was going to show it to you, and ask your advice on the contents." And Verdant handed to Mr. Bouncer a letter, which had been elaborately sealed with the aid of a key, and was directed high up in the left-hand corner to "Virdon grene esqre braisenface collidge Oxford." [Illustration] "You look beastly lazy, Charley!" said Mr. Bouncer to Mr. Charles Larkyns; "so, while I fill my pipe, just spit out the letter, _pro bono_." And Charles Larkyns, lying in Mr. Bouncer's easiest lounging chair, read as follows:--