"DEAR TOM,--It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest; and don't cry stinking fish, neither don't hollow till you're out of the wood--which you oughtn't to have called yourself Tom fool, and blasphemed the holy name thereby, till you knowed you was sich, which you wasn't, as appears by particulars. And I have heard from T---- twice to-day, and he is agreeable, which, if he wasn't, he is an ass, and don't know half a loaf is better than no bread, and you musn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but all is as right as a dog-fox down wind and vi. _millia passuum_, to the next gorse. But this £25 of his is a grueller, and I learnt with interest that you are inclined to get the fishes nose out of the weed. I have offered to lend him £10--hopes it may be lending--and have written a desperate begging letter to R. Monckton Milnes, Esq., which 'evins prosper. Poor T---- says to-night that he has written to Forster about it--which he must have the small of his back very hard against the ropes so to do, so the sooner we get the ginger-beer bottle out the longer he'll fight, or else he'll throw up the sponge at once; for I know his pride. I think we can raise it somehow. I have a last card in old ----, the judge who tried and condemned him, and is the dearest old soul alive, only he will have it T---- showed dunghill, and don't carry a real game nackle. If I am to tackle he you must send me back those letters to appeal to his piety and 'joys as does abound,' as your incomparable father remarks. When _will_ you give me that canticle? He says Tom Taylor (I believe all the world is called Thomas) has behaved to him like a brother, which, indeed, was to be expexed, and has promised him copying at a shilling an hour, and _will_ give him a chop daily free gracious; but the landlord won't wait, which we musn't neither.