Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/248

 Lane. And even if you do, I have a considerable time before me here. I have not much to reproach myself with since I came, and it would be a miserable martinet exactitude, not a good healthy working instinct, that would fear a week's visit from a friend. Come; we shall have many a good laugh at our friend Tierna's portraiture, and what is better we shall laugh with him at himself. I tell you half an hour's conversation is worth a ream of correspondence. The promised answers shall be communicated verbally.

"I say all this with of course the reservation that coming here will benefit your health, but I am strongly of opinion that it will. In the first place, any change of air is good; secondly, your spirits will be raised, which you know will re-act strongly on your body; and thirdly, I have come to the conclusion that London is absolutely and positively a healthy place; I have not had the shadow of a cold since I came here, and David Pigot, who is delicate, enjoys far better health than he did in Dublin.

"John Pigot, I need not say, joins his earnest entreaty to mine. It would be a matter of repentance to us all the winter if any notion about idling us deprived us of the pleasure of seeing you, and deprived you not only of the pleasure of seeing us, but of seeing others whom you must like to see. Believe me ever, &c.,"."

"I also certify to the healthiness of Babylon to the steadiness undisturbable of us students therein, and to the falsity, absurdity, stupidity, and John Bullishness of Mr. Duffy's martinet exactitude.

"Seriously, dear Duffy, I have much to discuss about Davis, which an hour's talk will expedite better than a year's writing. Your friend,"J. E. P."

I passed a week in London, which yielded all the enjoyments and benefactions my friends anticipated.

The Confederation started with a secretary whom, after my return, they were glad to replace by inducing D'Arcy M'Gee