" They
were immediately brought. Dando swallowed eight, and feebly took a
ninth. He held it in his mouth and looked round the bed strangely.
"Not a bad one, is it?" says the doctor. The patient shook his head,
rubbed his trembling hand upon his stomach, bolted the oyster, and
fell back--dead. They buried him in the prison yard, and paved his
grave with oyster-shells.
We are all well and hearty, and have already begun to wonder what
time next year you and Mrs. Felton and Dr. Howe will come across the
briny sea together. To-morrow we go to the seaside for two months. I
am looking out for news of Longfellow, and shall be delighted when I
know that he is on his way to London and this house.
I am bent upon striking at the piratical newspapers with the
sharpest edge I can put upon my small axe, and hope in the next
session of Parliament to stop their entrance into Canada. For the
first time within the memory of man, the professors of English
literature seem disposed to act together on this question. It is a
good thing to aggravate a scoundrel, if one can do nothing else, and
I think we can make them smart a little in this way....
I wish you had been at Greenwich the other day, where a party of
friends gave me a private dinner; public ones I have refused.
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