| 26 April, 1869.
My dear little Quoquo,
You must really excuse my
long silence.
I am just
head over heels immersed in work.
Now first as to your animals.
Sambo
has become almost inseparable from me, to make some way or other up for the
absence of his supreme master.
Blacky
behaves always like a gentleman, but a very dull one, too.
Tommy
has again done everything in her power to prove the truth of the
Malthus
theory.
Helen
will to-day, I suppose, murder the
new offspring of that old hag.
Whiskey
,
that great and good personage, was at first like
Calypso
a
Nxxxxx
(?)
, not to be consoled,
desperate
at your departure. He declined the finest bones, never left
your bedroom, and 
| altogether exhibited all the symptoms of
the
deep sufferings of a
“schöne
Seele”. Still, when your name is uttered, he gets into a
fit.—
Dicky
has turned out a very fine singer, and we both encourage our respective musical
talents by mutual “exercises”. Sometimes, however, when I commence whistling,
t
reats
Dicky treats me
as
Luther
treated the devil—he turns his——upon
me.
Jocko
has come out again, but its temper is as bad as possible. Having ascertained
that you are absent, it gave vent to every sort of spleen and baffled all
Helen’s attempts at coaxing
xx
(?)
Another source of annoyance for Jocko,
was the arrangement of the little garden—
its
a
world Jocko considered justly as its own station and domain—by the
gardener.
Jocko misses its little hills, caves, rents, and all that lively disorder it
delighted in.
As to the other “animals”—as they belong not to the dumb
sort, but are rather of a most talkative kind, and perfectly able to account for
their own doings—I shall just now not lose one syllable upon them.
| On Friday evening, I was at dinner at
Beesley
’s. Besides myself, there was
Crompton
, a barrister, and
Jung
and
Dupont
. Jung related his own doings. He told them what
“happy
(literal!)
speeches”
he
made here, and what “cutting hits” he made there. In this world of
“Weltschmerz”,
discontent, and restlessness, it gladdens your heart to be acquainted with an
individual that is “happy” and, moreover, possesses not only one shirt, but
Sarah
and other good things into the
bargain.
“
Irishman
” I send you to morrow.
Many thanks to
Cacadou
for
her letter
.
Many kisses to
Fouschtra
.
And compliments to
the
African
. It will give him great pleasure to
hear—if he has not already seen from the French papers,
that the first “black” ambassador
of the
U
nited
States
has been appointed by
Grant
.
Adio my little Quoquo
Yours Old Nick