completed your idea, we might breakfast
together at the G. on the Tuesday morning and discuss it. Or I shall be
in town after ten on the Monday night. At the office I will tell you the
idea of the Christmas number, which will put you in train, I hope, for a
story. I have postponed the shipwreck idea for a year, as it seemed to
require more force from me than I could well give it with the weight of
a new start upon me.

All here send their kindest remembrances. We missed you very much, and
the Plorn was quite inconsolable. We slide down Caesar occasionally.

They launched the boat, the rapid building of which you remember, the
other day. All the fishermen in the place, all the nondescripts, and all
the boys pulled at it with ropes from six A.M. to four P.M. Every now
and then the ropes broke, and they all fell down in the shingle. The
obstinate way in which the beastly thing wouldn't move was so
exasperating that I wondered they didn't shoot it, or burn it. Whenever
it moved an inch they all cheered; whenever it wouldn't move they all
swore. Finally, when it was quite given over, some one tumbled against
it accidentally (as it appeared to me, looking out at my window here),
and it instantly shot about a mile into the sea, and they all stood
looking at it helplessly.

Kind regards to Pigott, in which all unite.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

FOLKESTONE, _Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1855._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

I have been hammering away in that strenuous manner at my book, that I
have had leisure for scarcely any letters but such, as I have been
obliged to write; having a horrible temptation when I lay down my
book-pen to run out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide
down the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the relief
that only exercise gives me.

Your letter to Miss Coutts in behalf of little Miss Warner I despatched
straightway. She is at present among the Pyrenees, and a letter from her
crossed that one of mine in which I enclosed yours, last week.

Pray stick to that dim notion you have of coming to Paris! How
delightful it would be to see your aged countenance and perfectly bald
head in that capital! It will renew your youth, to visit a theatre
(previously dining at the Trois Freres) in company with the jocund boy
who now addresses you. Do, do stick to it.

You will be ple