that only two notes passed between us during those years.

Till, last May, there reached me the letter--and the packet--to which I
refer. The packet consisted of four note-books, quite crowded
throughout with those giddy shapes of Pitman's shorthand, whose
_ensemble_ so resembles startled swarms hovering in flighty poses on the
wing. They were scribbled in pencil, with little distinction between
thick and thin strokes, few vowels: so that their slow deciphering, I
can assure the reader, has been no holiday. The letter also was
pencilled in shorthand; and this letter, together with the second of the
note-books which I have deciphered (it was marked 'III.'), I now
publish.

[I must say, however, that in some five instances there will occur
sentences rather crutched by my own guess-work; and in two instances the
characters were so impossibly mystical, that I had to abandon the
passage with a head-ache. But all this will be found immaterial to the
general narrative.]

The following is Browne's letter:

'DEAR OLD SHIEL,--I have just been lying thinking of you, and wishing
that you were here to give one a last squeeze of the hand before
I--"_go_": for, by all appearance, "going" I am. Four days ago, I began
to feel a soreness in the throat, and passing by old Johnson's surgery
at Selbridge, went in and asked him to have a look at me. He muttered
something about membranous laryngitis which made me smile, but by the
time I reached home I was hoarse, and not smiling: before night I had
dyspnoca and laryngeal stridor. I at once telegraphed to London for
Morgan, and, between him and Johnson, they have been opening my trachea,