Volume Ii Part 9 (1/2)

INIMITABLE (_in his delightful way_). What a nice old fellow you are. I am very fond of little boys.

YOUNG IRELAND. Air yer? Ye'r right.

INIMITABLE. What do you learn, old fellow?

YOUNG IRELAND (_very intent on Inimitable, and always childish, except in his brogue_). I lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of two sillibils, and wureds of one sillibil.

INIMITABLE (_gaily_). Get out, you humbug! You learn only words of one syllable.

YOUNG IRELAND (_laughs heartily_). You may say that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil.

INIMITABLE. Can you write?

YOUNG IRELAND. Not yet. Things comes by deegrays.

INIMITABLE. Can you cipher?

YOUNG IRELAND (_very quickly_). Wha'at's that?

INIMITABLE. Can you make figures?

YOUNG IRELAND. I can make a nought, which is not asy, being roond.

INIMITABLE. I say, old boy, wasn't it you I saw on Sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier's cap? You know--in a soldier's cap?

YOUNG IRELAND (_cogitating deeply_). Was it a very good cap?

INIMITABLE. Yes.

YOUNG IRELAND. Did it fit unkommon?

INIMITABLE. Yes.

YOUNG IRELAND. Dat was me!

There are two stupid old louts at the room, to show people into their places, whom John calls ”them two old Paddies,” and of whom he says, that he ”never see nothing like them (sn.i.g.g.e.r) hold idiots” (sn.i.g.g.e.r).

They bow and walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle them while they are doing it.

We walked out last night, with the intention of going to the theatre; but the Piccolomini establishment (they were doing the ”Lucia”) looked so horribly like a very bad jail, and the Queen's looked so blackguardly, that we came back again, and went to bed. I seem to be always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. I get so knocked up, whenever I have a minute to remember it, that then I go to bed as a matter of course.

I send my love to the n.o.ble Plorn, and to all the boys. To dear Mamie and Katie, and to yourself of course, in the first degree. I am looking forward to the last Irish reading on Thursday, with great impatience.

But when we shall have turned this week, once knocked off Belfast, I shall see land, and shall (like poor Timber in the days of old) ”keep up a good heart.” I get so wonderfully hot every night in my dress clothes, that they positively won't dry in the short interval they get, and I have been obliged to write to Doudney's to make me another suit, that I may have a constant change.

Ever, my dearest Georgy, most affectionately.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

BELFAST, _Sat.u.r.day, Aug. 28th, 1858._