“Aytoun shall have the reversion of M’Caskey at his own price. I mean Aytoun’s price, for the other estimate might be a stunner.
“Wolff—I mean Skeff—I mean to resuscitate,—that is, I think a droll paper of his unedited memoirs might one day be made amusing, and the vehicle for some very original notions on diplomacy and politics generally. He has just started to the Piraeus to see Henry Bulwer, who, like Mr Mantalini, is at the point of death for the nineteenth time. Wolff looks up to him with immense reverence as being the most consummate rogue in Europe; and this he is certainly, notwithstanding the fact that he has been detected and pronounced a hardened offender by every Government since the Duke’s to Palmerston’s. What robbery he wants to entrust to W. with his dying breath is hard to say; but poor Skeffy is quite eager for the inheritance,—though God help him if he thinks he can rig the thimble when his pal has gone home.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
[Undated.]
“They have sold my old house here, and I am driven to a little villa (or shall be) in about a month’s time,—a small crib, nicely placed and very quiet, about a mile from the Gates.
“What fun one could make of the devil at Compiègne, talking over all L. Nap.‘s plans, how he had humbugged every one—Pam, Russell, the Austrians, Emp., &c, &c.; the devil’s compta, on the beauty of Paris, and how much all that luxury and splendour did for him. An evening with Bulwer, too, and a week at Pisa, where he dined with H. Bulwer and heard the grand project for the regeneration of Turkey—the best bit of news the devil had heard since the partition of Poland.
“I would not for a great deal have called O’D. ‘Corney’ had I known of the other proprietor of the name; and I suspect I know the man, and that he is a right good fellow. Nobody, however, has copyright in his name—as I know, for a prebend of Lichfield wrote a socialist story and called his hero Charles Lever.
“I was once going to be shot by a certain Charles O’Malley, but who afterwards told all the adventures of my hero as his own, with various diversions into which I had not ventured.
“I was going to call O’D. ‘Terence.’ Now if the other O’D. likes to be rebaptised by that name I’m ready to stand godfather; but as my own child is before the world as Corney, I cannot change him.”