To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, July 6, 1868.
“My ‘Lab.’ O’D. was, I believe, niched out of the post here: no loss, perhaps, for it was terribly wicked and personal. This is milder, and cuts two ways. Let me see a proof, and if I have a third in the meantime, I will send it.
“Do print my story, like a good fellow. You’ll see it is a hit.
“I have just received news that the fleet will be here on Friday, and then—the deluge!
“I have ordered such a supply of bitter ale and cigars that the authorities are curious to know if I am about to open a Biergarten, which I secretly suspect I am—minus the ready-money profits.
“Tegeloff comes down to meet the admiral, and if anything turns up you shall have it.”
To Mr William Blackwood.
“Trieste, July 16, 1868.
“Oh, B. B., what a humbug you are! affecting to be hard-worked, and galley-slaved, and the rest of it. Telling this to me too. Dives lecturing Lazarus on the score of dyspepsia is a mild case compared to a publisher asking compassion from a poor devil of an author on the score of his fatigue. I picture you to myself as a careless dog, hunting, flirting, cricket-playing, and picnic-ing, with no severer labour than reading an amusing proof over a mild cheroot and a sherry cobbler. I tell you that on every ground—morally, aesthetically, and geographically—you ought to come and see me, and if you won’t, I’ll be shot but I’ll make an O’Dowd on you.