roaring,
I don't know how many hundred feet below! If you could have seen but
one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of
ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had come and
gone, or smelt but one steam of the HOT punch (not white, dear
Felton, like that amazing compound I sent you a taste of, but a
rich, genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge
broad china bowl! I never laughed in my life as I did on this
journey. It would have done you good to hear me. I was choking and
gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of my stock, all the
way. And Stanfield (who is very much of your figure and temperament,
but fifteen years older) got into such apoplectic entanglements
that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus
before we could recover him. Seriously, I do believe there never was
such a trip. And they made such sketches, those two men, in the most
romantic of our halting-places, that you would have sworn we had the
Spirit of Beauty with us, as well as the Spirit of Fun. But stop
till you come to England,--I say no more.

The actuary of the national debt couldn't calculate the number of
children who are coming here on Twelfth Night, in honor of Charley's
birthday, for which occasion I have provided a magic lantern and
divers other tremendous engines of that nature. But the best of it
is that Forster and I have purchased between us the entire stock in
trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted
to me. And O my dear eyes, Felton, if you could see me conjuring the
company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of
money to fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em,
and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would
never forget as long as you live. In those tricks which require a
confederate, I am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable
good-humor) by Stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong
way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. We come out on a
small scale, to-night, at Forster's, where we see the old year out
and the new one in. Particulars of shall be forwarded in my next.

I have quite made up my mind that F---- really believes he _does_
know you personally, and has all his life. He talks to me about you