And _five_ since we were _two_.

"Pray excuse all this nonsense; for I must talk nonsense just now,
for fear of wandering to more serious topics, which, in the present
state of things, is not safe by a foreign post.

"I told you in my last, that I had been going on with the
'Memoirs,' and have got as far as twelve more sheets. But I suspect
they will be interrupted. In that case I will send them on by post,
though I feel remorse at making a friend pay so much for postage,
for we can't frank here beyond the frontier.

"I shall be glad to hear of the event of the Queen's concern. As
to the ultimate effect, the most inevitable one to you and me (if
they and we live so long) will be that the Miss Moores and Miss
Byrons will present us with a great variety of grandchildren by
different fathers.

"Pray, where did you get hold of Goethe's Florentine
husband-killing story? Upon such matters, in general, I may say,
with Beau Clincher, in reply to Errand's wife--

"'Oh the villain, he hath murdered my poor Timothy!'

"'_Clincher_. Damn your Timothy!--I tell you, woman, your husband
has _murdered me_--he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.'

"So Bowles has been telling a story, too ('tis in the Quarterly),
about the woods of 'Madeira,' and so forth. I shall be at Bowles
again, if he is not quiet. He mis-states, or mistakes, in a point