ive a ten-pound note to see you,
if I had it;--I would, indeed--so help me several strong men and a
steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally
screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I
could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor
landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the
wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards
underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three
jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of
course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow
we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along
the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the
practicable chimneys. Jack Randall--such a jolly chick! you must be
introduced to him--has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the
corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful
estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall
down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their
foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the
crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them
up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion--who knows? Jack
is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of
recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as
far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose
no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got
scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if
they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of
the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is
my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to
Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of
liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and
assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders,
two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears
to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you