And this was the answer he got eight-and-forty hours afterwards:
'Doughty Street, London, W.C.
'April 27th, 1866.
'DEAR MANUS,
'Confound you, why don't you write oftener? As we used to say on the old sod (by-the-way, is Ireland really older than any other place?)—as we used to say, I repeat, only twisting the phrase—it's good for sore eyes to see your crabbed fist. How am I getting on? More Hibernico, I shall answer, your question by asking one of my own. How are you getting on? You haven't taken your degree yet, with or without honours, that I can plainly discern, ma bouchal. Taking lessons in anatomy from the living subject at Bullier, I'm afraid, eh? you born divil of the O'Hara breed and the pedigree without a blemish. Now, if you were a suckling barrister you might have a chance of getting at the head of your profession by phrenologically investigating the Chief Justice's noddle; but studying the symmetry of the human form divine from the contortions of Rigolboche and her friends is hardly the way to rival Butcher or Brunton.
'Chaffing apart, old man, I do hope you stick to your profession, and are not carried away by your ill-starred passion for Literature. Like Art, she is but a sorry, wanton jade to pay court to, and leaves you in the lurch when most you stand in need of a helping hand. Better be a mediocre sawbones than a mediocre paper-stainer. The mediocre sawbones can always take a shop, go to India, marry a sickly widow, or invent a patent medicine. As for poor paper-stainer, every day that he lives he is eating his way into his capital. My boy, they won't lend money to a pressman in this town, even on solvent security. The other day I went myself in propria personâ to ask for a small advance from an advertising firm of usurers close to London Bridge, and after I had filled and signed a pile of scored fools-cap, what did they tell me?—"If you had informed us that your were a journalist at first you might have saved yourself all that trouble. We make it a rule to have no business transactions with journalists!" There was a pewter inkstand at my elbow, and I imagine it would have had a business transaction with a greasy little Hebrew's countenance if I didn't happen to catch a glimpse of a couple of others, who were hiding behind the tall desks, cut-and-dry witnesses in the event of assault and battery, I presume. Here I must stop to drink a glass to the memory of Titus. Wasn't he the fellow that brought about the destruction of Jerusalem? Glory be his bed and birthright this blessed day!
* * * * * * *
'Well, 'tis time to tell you how I am getting on. Imprimis, I have not set the Thames ablaze, and, honestly, I must admit that it was not for the lack of inflammable properties in the liquid. One may be a Triton in his own parish pond, and a very minute minnow in this huge ocean of London. The streets are not paved with gold, nor the houses roofed with rubies. The streets are more usually paved like those of another spot, but with big ambitions instead of good intentions, and as to the houses, he's a lucky dog who has one he can call his own. I have tried my hand at anything and everything not requiring a strict preliminary training—bar stone-breaking. I had aspirations towards the stage, but I never got beyond the front door—that is to say, I was hired as a check-taker at the Vaudeville once. I thought I would write a melodrama—an Irish one, of course—and I took it to one Mrs. Selby, a dear old lady, who had a house devoted to comedietta and extravaganza, legs and upholstery—how innocent of all these things I was, you may guess from this—and she kindly recommended me to cart it to the Surrey. I did. It was accepted on conditions, after sundry hums and haws. The theatre was burnt down two nights afterwards. The theatre was insured, but, alas! the manuscript of "The Terryalts" was not, and I hadn't a copy of it.
I next became a cab-driver; that is, as soon as I got to have the map of the town sunk in bas-relief on my cranium. A hard life, precarious, harassing, and not very profitable. The novelty of the thing kept me up for a while, but I had to give in after a course of three months. The deuce of an adventure I had but once, and that was with a distinguished member of the craft I at present honour with my patronage. It was outside Stone's, in Panton Street. A portly man, with a nose the hue of a danger-signal, hailed me. "Barnes, cabby," he said, "and look alive about it." "All right, sir," and away I rattled till I got to Barnes, a village on the south bank of the river, between Putney and Mortlake. I opened the spy-hole at the top of the hansom to ask at what house I was to stop, and, lo and behold you! there was my fare snoring the snore of the just. I got down and roused him. "Where are we?" he asked. I told him. "Drat you!" he cried, "I meant Barnes' Tavern, in the Haymarket—I wanted to borrow some tin there." I apologized. "All right, watchman," he cried, "drive on!" and dropped back again into the corner as sound asleep as a curled hedgehog. I drove to the middle of Barnes Common, tenderly lifted my customer out of the cab, and gently bedded him on his back in the shadow of a furze-bush.
'My next essay at fortune took a military turn. I went down to Charles Street, Westminster, met a recruiting sergeant, declared my enthusiastic yearning to join the sappers and miners, and soiled my palm with the Saxon shilling. My martial career was not remarkably lengthened. I failed to "pass the doctor" next morning—he told me I had varicose veins! Bad manners to his impudence, the pursy little humbug! I only wished you and I had him alongside us up Keeper Hill, on one of our boyhood's rambles, and we'd soon take the wind and the conceit out of him.
'What was I to do now? I was fairly at my wits' end. To rob I was not able—it requires genius here; to beg I was ashamed. I had serious thoughts of trying my hand at the fine arts. I heard that those fellows who chalk mackerel on the pavement make a tidy living out of it, and it struck me that a new departure in that direction might bring me fame and fortune. My notion—it may turn up a trump yet for somebody—was to paint caricatures in distemper on the backs of tortoises. But I had no spare cash to lay out on stock, either in pigments or specimens of the genus testudo.