FROM

SAMUEL SOFTLY, ESQ. TO HIS FRIEND, RICHARD GUBBINS, ESQ. OF TOOLEY
STREET.

O! DICK!

Such a misfortin' has you never heard on as come upon your friend. I'll
jist give you a breef houtline of the circumstantials as near as my
flurry vill let me. T'other mornin' I vips up my gun for to go
a-shootin', and packin' up my hammunition, and some sanwidges, I bids
adoo to this wile smoky town, vith the intention of gettin' a little
hair. Vell! on I goes a-visshin' and thinkin' on nothin', and happy as
the bumblebees as vos a-numming around me. Vell! a'ter an hour or more's
valking, not an house nor a brick vos wisible.

Natur', in all her werdur', vos smilin' like a fat babby in its maternal
harms! But, as somebody has it--

"Man never ain't, but al'ays to be bless'd,"

and I'm bless'd if that ain't true too, as you shall see presently. Vell!
I pops at von bird and then at another; but vether the poor creturs vos
unaccustom'd to guns, and so vos frighten'd, I don't know, but somehow I
couldn't hit 'em no-how.

Vell! and so I vos jist a-chargin' agin ven a great he-fellow, in a ruff
coat and partic'lar large viskers, accostes me (ciwilly I must say, but
rayther familler)--