_Saranac_ [_December_ 1887].
MY DEAR LAD,—I was indeed overjoyed to hear of the Dumas. In the matter
of the dedication, are not cross dedications a little awkward? Lang and
Rider Haggard did it, to be sure. Perpend. And if you should conclude
against a dedication, there is a passage in _Memories and Portraits_
written _at_ you, when I was most desperate (to stir you up a bit), which
might be quoted: something about Dumas still waiting his biographer. I
have a decent time when the weather is fine; when it is grey, or windy,
or wet (as it too often is), I am merely degraded to the dirt. I get
some work done every day with a devil of a heave; not extra good ever;
and I regret my engagement. Whiles I have had the most deplorable
business annoyances too; have been threatened with having to refund
money; got over that; and found myself in the worse scrape of being a
kind of unintentional swindler. These have worried me a great deal; also
old age with his stealing steps seems to have clawed me in his clutch to
some tune.
Do you play All Fours? We are trying it; it is still all haze to me.
Can the elder hand _beg_ more than once? The Port Admiral is at Boston
mingling with millionaires. I am but a weed on Lethe wharf. The wife is
only so-so. The Lord lead us all: if I can only get off the stage with
clean hands, I shall sing Hosanna. ‘Put’ is described quite differently
from your version in a book I have; what are your rules? The Port
Admiral is using a game of put in a tale of his, the first copy of which
was gloriously finished about a fortnight ago, and the revise gallantly
begun: _The Finsbury Tontine_ it is named, and might fill two volumes,
and is quite incredibly silly, and in parts (it seems to me) pretty
humorous.—Love to all from