be derived from its past or present representative, might certainly, with
more propriety, reverse the epithet, and read "smoke without fire." My
last communication from head-quarters was full of nothing but gay doings
--balls, dinners, dejeunes, and more than all, private theatricals,
seemed to occupy the entire attention of every man of the gallant __th.
I was earnestly entreated to come, without waiting for the end of my
leave--that several of my old "parts were kept open for me;" and that, in
fact, the "boys of Kilkenny" were on tip-toe in expectation of my
arrival, as though his Majesty's mail were to convey a Kean or a Kemble.
I shuddered a little as I read this, and recollected "my last appearance
on any stage," little anticipating, at the moment, that my next was to be
nearly as productive of the ludicrous, as time and my confessions will
show. One circumstance, however, gave me considerable pleasure. It was
this:--I took it for granted that, in the varied and agreeable
occupations which so pleasurable a career opened, my adventures in love
would escape notice, and that I should avoid the merciless raillery my
two failures, in six months, might reasonably be supposed to call forth.
I therefore wrote a hurried note to Curzon, setting forth the great
interest all their proceedings had for me, and assuring him that my stay
in town should be as short as possible, for that I longed once more to
"strut the monarch of the boards," and concluded with a sly paragraph,
artfully intended to act as a "paratonnere" to the gibes and jests which
I dreaded, by endeavouring to make light of my matrimonial speculations.
The postscript ran somewhat thus--"Glorious fun have I had since we met;
but were it not that my good angel stood by me, I should write these
hurried lines with a wife at my elbow; but luck, that never yet deserted,
is still faithful to your old friend, H. Lorrequer."

My reader may suppose--for he is sufficiently behind the scenes with me
--with what feelings I penned these words; yet any thing was better than