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.

"Now, business afore pleasure. You are an old darling, and who says no,
I'd kick him, if it warn't for my cloth; but you are green in cottoning to
me about our '48 mess. Because why? I lost nothing--I risked nothing. You
fellows worked like bricks, spent money, and got midshipman's half-pay
(nothing a-day and find yourself), and monkey's allowance (more kicks than
halfpence). I risked no money; 'cause why, I had none; but _made_ money out
of the movement, and fame too. I've often thought what a dirty beast I was.
I made L150 by Alton Locke, and never lost a farthing; and I got, not in
spite of, but by the rows, a name and a standing with many a one who would
never have heard of me otherwise, and I should have been a stercoraceous
mendicant if I had hollowed when I got a facer, while I was winning by the
cross, though I didn't mean to fight one. No. And if I'd had L100,000, I'd
have, and should have, staked and lost it all in 1848-50. I should, Tom,
for my heart was and is in it, and you'll see it will beat yet; but we
ain't the boys. We don't see but half the bull's eye yet, and don't see
_at all_ the policeman which is a going on his beat behind the bull's eye,
and no thanks to us. Still, _some_ somedever, it's in the fates, that