could not help taking up the pen.

I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made
half a dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.

In short, I was in no mood to write.

La Fleur stepp'd out and brought a little water in a glass to
dilute my ink,--then fetch'd sand and seal-wax.--It was all one; I
wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again.--Le
diable l'emporte! said I, half to myself,--I cannot write this
self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I said it.

As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand
apologies for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a
letter in his pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a
corporal's wife, which he durst say would suit the occasion.

I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour.--Then prithee,
said I, let me see it.

La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm'd
full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and
laying it upon the table, and then untying the string which held
them all together, run them over, one by one, till he came to the
letter in question,--La voila! said he, clapping his hands: so,
unfolding it first, he laid it open before me, and retired three
steps from the table whilst I read it.