1837-38. STUDIO DESCRIBED. 105 



fashion of recovering sick-folks, in listening to odd tales and 

 fantastic anecdotes : the great demand is for ( funny stories/ and 

 such a thing as drugging the market is quite impossible, so 

 great is the consumption of the article in question. She has 

 already digested a great portion of the celebrated story of Eory 

 O'More, with the top-boots, the illigant stick and the gridiron ; 

 has devoured piecemeal Croker's Legends of Ireland, and having 

 her eyes now open, she has been able, in addition to hearing the 

 inimitable story of your namesake, O'Kourke, to feast her eyes 

 with a sight of the sketch taken from life, of ' 'pon the honour 

 of a gintleman/ and the stone sinking in the bog. This evening 

 has seen Mary and me relieving each other (like shipwrecked 

 passengers at the pumps) in instilling into her the wholesome 

 precepts of Mansie Wauch, and as a further proof of her being 

 on the high road to complete recovery, though yet very weak, 

 and unable to do more than half sit up in bed, she and I sing 

 together the ' Angel's Whisper,' the ' Mistletoe Bough/ and the 

 ' Fairy's Song/ every verse with great eclat and mutual congra- 

 tulation. Before I close the letter I shall have a message from 

 herself, but just now she is sleeping, so I for the present close 

 my duties as Secretary for the Home Department. 



" Lest you should throw back in my teeth some of my grumb- 

 lings, let me tell you something about my own doings. Well, 

 you will be delighted to hear that I have made great progress 

 in the honing of razors. Excuse the vanity that dictated that 

 last sentence, while I proceed to tell you what alterations have 

 been effected in my studio, that you may be able to realize the 

 idea of myself sitting in the ancient morning gown. Well, there 

 are no wooden or brick partitions built up ; it has four walls, 

 one window, two hat pegs, two doors, one museum (see you pro- 

 nounce that rightly) ; and in addition to all that, your protege, 

 the muse's son, M'Donald, brought me over, the night you sailed, 

 an oil painting of the Dutch surgeon, and his patient squealing 

 before the knife touched him, a fine spirited thing. Dobbie is 

 greatly pleased with it, and I have got the young fellow engaged 

 to paint me a partner for it, in the shape of an old grave grey- 

 headed and bearded alchymist, puffing his furnace among fan- 

 tastic vessels, so that, as the one points to a surgeon's room, the 



