memory of him but Alas how short-sighted is man, How keep that vow when
penniless!" It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he
couldn't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to have
kept to it ever since is highly creditable. But we know there's good in
all of us,--if we only knew where it was in some of us,--and though it
was far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child's feelings
when first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-
money by return of post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper's own
youngest brother and mightn't have meant not paying his bill at the
Salisbury Arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at
Hatfield churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad
company. Consequently if the Major _had_ played on him with the garden-
engine which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I
think that much as I should have regretted it there would have been words
betwixt the Major and me. Therefore my dear though he played on Mr.
Buffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been
misrepresented down at Wozenham's into not being ready for Mr. Buffle in
other respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret
it as perhaps I ought. And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well in
life I cannot say, but I did hear of his coming, out at a Private Theatre
in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers afterwards from
the regular managers.

Mentioning Mr. Baffle gives an instance of there being good in persons
where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle's
manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable. To collect is
one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being
gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another,
over taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary. Allowances
too must ever be made for a gentleman of the Major's warmth not relishing