might be carried on as long as the envelopes could hold
together.] Mercy upon us, Alan! what letters I shall have to
send to you, with an account of all that I can collect, of
pleasant or rare, in this wild-goose jaunt of mine! All I
stipulate is that you do not communicate them to the SCOTS
MAGAZINE; for though you used, in a left-handed way, to
compliment me on my attainments in the lighter branches of
literature, at the expense of my deficiency in the weightier
matters of the law, I am not yet audacious enough to enter the
portal which the learned Ruddiman so kindly opened for the
acolytes of the Muses.--VALE SIS MEMOR MEI. D. L.

PS. Direct to the Post Office here. I shall leave orders to
forward your letters wherever I may travel.




LETTER II

ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER

NEGATUR, my dear Darsie--you have logic and law enough to
understand the word of denial. I deny your conclusion. The
premises I admit, namely, that when I mounted on that infernal
hack, I might utter what seemed a sigh, although I deemed it lost
amid the puffs and groans of the broken-winded brute, matchless
in the complication of her complaints by any save she, the poor
man's mare, renowned in song, that died