Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

“I send you a short O’D. – which, as Mrs Dodd says, may please the Mammoth of unrighteousness, the press! – on ‘Our War Correspondents,’ also ‘On Bathing Naked.’ The last will help to relieve the dryness of politics, in which O’D. has of late indulged much.

“I am not ashamed of ‘Sir B.,’ and I leave it entirely to yourself to append the name or not. I think Tony was injured by being anonymous, and this had probably better be acknowledged.

“If I could manage it, I’d go over to see Venice on its cession. It would be curious in many ways.

“Do you perceive how L. Nap, is laying by the nest-egg of future discord in Germany, fomenting discontent in all Southern Germany, and exciting the King of Saxony to defer accepting terms of peace? Contracts are already taken in Austria to provision the Saxon troops for three months, so that there is no question whatever of their return to Saxony. All this shows clearly enough what pressure he means to put upon Prussia – that is to say, how much he intends to gall and goad her. If she resent, she must do something provocative, and that provocation will be all the Emperor needs to stir up French anger, always ready enough to take fire. It is in this way this scoundrel always works, – like the duellists who force the challenge from the other party, that they may have the choice of the weapon!

“I hope to God he won’t drive me mad, as my daughters daily tell me, for I can’t keep myself from thinking and talking of him. He destroys the comfort of my daily potatoes, and I think my little franc Bordeaux is soured by the thought of him.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Sept. 24,1866.

“I am well pleased that you like the wind-up of ‘Sir B.’ It is always my weak point; and so instinctively do I feel it so, that I fear I shall make a bad ending myself. I half suspect, however, that your praise was a delicate forbearance, and that you really did see some abruptness. Now I have a great horror of being thought prosy. There is something in prosiness that resembles a moral paralysis, and I fear it as I should fear a real palsy.

“I have written a few last words, which I leave to your judgment to subjoin or not. It’s well I have wound up the story, for I begin to feel some signs of a return of the attack I had last spring. Perhaps, however, it may pass off without carrying me with it.

“Wolff is here: he dined here yesterday, and made us laugh heartily at his account of the way Labouchere blackguarded him on the hustings at Windsor, – ‘The knight from the Ionian Islands, whose glittering honours would not be the worse of the horse-pond,’ and after this went and dined with him at the ‘Star’!

“Wolff has come out with some credit from our people about a great ‘robbery’ to be done on the Italian Government – a loan of a hundred millions (francs, of course).

“I hear Lord Stanley would give me Venice – the Consul-Generalship – if Perry would resign or die. He has been ‘cretinised’ these ten years, but idiocy is the best guarantee for longevity. ‘The men the gods loved’ were clever fellows, and they ‘had their reward.’ It would be a great boon to me to get a place before I break up, – just as it is a polite attention to offer a lady a chair before she faints.

“If I get upon L. Nap. I shall write you ten pages, so I forbear, but not until I have screamed my loudest against that stupid credulity with which the English papers accept his circular as ‘Peace.’ Don’t you remember what Swift said to Bickerstaff, when the latter declared he was not dead? ‘Now we know you are dead, for you never told a word of truth in your life.’

“Did you see that the Cave of Adullam was originally Lincoln’s? I have noted eight distinct thefts of Bright, and am half disposed to give them in a paper with the title, ‘Blunderings and Plunder-ings of John Bright.’

“I have taken to gardening, – it’s cheaper than whist, and a watering-pot is a modest investment; besides, I feel like a Cockney friend who retired from the gay world and took to horticulture, – ‘One never can want company who has a hoe and a rake.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 29,1866.

“I have conceived a new story which may, I think, turn out well. I do not wish to do it hurriedly, but if you think it would suit you by the opening of the New Year, I will go on to shape and mould it in my head, and when in a state to do so, send you some pages.

“I can afford to be frank with you, for I think you wish me well. I believe there is some thought of giving me advancement, but even if it come, it will not suffice for my wants, and I must write (at all events) one more novel. I trust you understand me well enough to know that I am not pressing my wares on you, because I want to dispose of them, or that if it be your wish or your convenience to say ‘No’ that it will alter anything in our friendship. You will bear this well in mind in giving me your reply.

“I don’t believe I shall do better than ‘Sir Brook.’ I don’t think it is in me, but I will try to do as well, and certainly if it is for you, I will not do my work less vigorously nor with less heart in it. There is certainly plenty of time to think of all this, but I think better and more purposely when the future is, to a certain degree, assured, and my new story will get a stronger hold on me if I know that you too are interested in its welfare.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Oct. 7, 1866.

“My best thanks for your note and its enclosure. They only reached me last night, though dated 30th, but the mails go by God knows what route now, as the inundations have completely cut the Mont Cenis line. I send off the Nov. ‘Sir B.’ to-night. There are two or three small corrections which had escaped me. I think if the book be largely known it may succeed. I hope ‘The Times’ may notice it – is this likely? I shall ask for some copies for a few friends, and my own can be addressed to me under cover to F. Alston, Esq., F. O. My eldest daughter, who went carefully over the corrections, says I have done nothing as good. By the way, I have not gone over Sept. and Oct. Nos. See that Sewell is never Walter, always duelling, and look well to any other lapses.

“I am all wrong in health, and depressed most damnably. I go down to Spezzia to have a swim or two to try to rally, and I shall take the O’Ds. with me for correction.

“I suspect Perry will not give up Venice, but your friends are asking L. Stanley to give me Havre, which is vacant. How kind of you to offer to write to him. I don’t like putting you to the bore, but if you come personally in his way, say what you can, or think you can, for me. Havre is worth £700 a-year, and would solace my declining years and decaying faculties. Paralysis is the last luxury of poor devils like myself, but I really can’t afford it.

“So Lyons goes Ambassador to Paris. I know him well, and his capacity is about that of a small village doctor. The devil of it is, in English diplomacy the two or three men of ability are such arrant scamps and blackguards, they can’t be employed, and the honest men are dull as ditch-water. There is no denying it, and I don’t say it because I am dyspeptic, – but we have arrived at Fogeydom in England, and the highest excellence that the nation wants or estimates is a solemn and stolid ‘respectability’ that shocks nobody with anything new or original, and spoils no digestion by any sudden or unexpected brilliancy.

“The Ionian knight is here with me, full of grander projects than ever Skeff Darner dreamed of. He asked me yesterday if that character had any prototype.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, Oct. 9,1866.

“I have been here some days swimming and boating, and the sea and sea-air have done wonders for me, making me feel more like a live man than I have known myself these six months.

“I send you by this post the O’Ds. corrected, and herewith a few lines to finish the ‘Cable’ O’D., which you properly thought needed some completion.

“I go back to-morrow, and hope to find a letter from you. Though I am totally alone here, and have nobody above my boatman to talk to, I leave this with some regret. The beauty of the place and the vigour it gives me are unspeakable enjoyments. It is like a dream of being twenty years younger.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Oct. 22, 1866.

“I am very grateful for your note on my behalf. You said just the sort of thing that would be likely to serve me, and will, I have no doubt, serve me if opportunity offers. Lord S. has been so besieged on my part by my friends that he will for peace sake be anxious to get rid of me. The difficulty is, however, considerable. The whole Consular service is a beggarly concern, and the only thing reconcilable about it is when there is, as in my own case, nothing to do.

“The Party were much blamed – and, I suspect, deservedly – for the way in which they are distributing their patronage. It was but last week Havre, with a thousand a-year (consular salary), was given to Bernai Osborne’s brother! and two of the private sees, of Cabinet Ministers held office as such under the late Administration. These are blunders, and blunders that not alone alienate friends but confuse councils, since no one pretends to say that these men maintain a strict silence amongst their own party of what they hear and see in their official lives.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Nov. 8,1866.

“You say nothing about the serial, so I conclude your plans are made; but what say you to taking my story to begin your July volume? That interval would perhaps take off the air of sameness you seem to apprehend, and it would in so far suit me that I could rest a little just now, which is perhaps the best thing I could do. Say if this will suit you.

“I was greatly tempted to go to Venice, so many of my friends went; but I was too low in many ways, and so resisted all offers.

“Send me some money. The Florence tradesmen, in their religious fervour, anticipate Xmas by sending in their bills before December, and in this way they keep me blaspheming all Advent.

“I hope to hear some good news of ‘Sir Brook,’ – if, that is to say, good news has not cut with me, which I half begin to suspect.

“What do you say to the Pope’s allocution? It appears to me son dernier mot. By the way, why did your political article last month pronounce so positively against any Reform Bill, when it is quite certain the Government will try one? Would not the best tactic of party be now to declare that the only possible reform measure could come from the Tories? that, representing, as they do, the nation more broadly as well as more unchangeably, their bill would be more likely to settle the question for a longer term of years than any measure conceived in the spirit of mere party, – and I would like to show that it is the spirit of party, of even factious party, that is animating the Whigs.

“Universal suffrage in Australia has proved an eminently Conservative measure. What we have to bear most in England is not great change so much as sudden change. We can conform to anything, but we need time to suit ourselves to the task.

“I suspect that the moderate Whigs have no intention of joining the Conservatives. There is, first of all, the same disgrace attaching to a change of seat in the House as in a change of religion. Nobody hesitates to think that a convert must be either a knave or a fool; and, secondly, the Whigs do not apprehend danger as we do: they do not think Democracy either so near or so perilous. Which of us is right, God knows! For my own part, perhaps my stomach has something to say to it. I believe we have turned the summit of the hill, and are on our way downward as fast as may be.

“America is wonderfully interesting just now. It is a great problem at issue, and never was popular government submitted to so severe a test. If Johnson goes on and determines to beard the Radicals, he will be driven to get up a row with England to obtain an army. They will vote troops readily enough for that, – reste à savoir against whom he will employ them.

“I am glad to see Lord Stanley appointing a Commission to consider the Yankee claims. There is nothing so really good in parliamentary government as the simple fact that a new Cabinet may undo the very policy they once approved of, and thus the changeful fortunes of the world may be used to profit, instead of accepted as hopeless calamities.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Nov. 16,1866

“I would have delayed these proofs another day in the hope of hearing from you, as I am so anxious to do, but that the Queen’s Messenger leaves this evening for England, and I desire to catch him as my postman.

“I send you an O’D. on the Pope, and, curiously enough, since I wrote it I have found that Lord Derby’s instructions to Odo Russell are in conformity with the line I take, being to make the Pope stay where he is.

“We were to have had great Department changes, but they are all

Tombées dans Veau, at least for the present. Lyons was to have gone to Paris vice Cowley, and Hudson come back here, but the Queen will not permit the Princess of Wales, on her visit to the Exhibition, to go to a bachelor’s house! L. Lyons has no wife. Why they don’t send him an order through F. O. to marry immediately I don’t know, but I can swear if the command came from the head of a department he’d have obeyed before the week was over.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Dec 16,1866.

“I return the proof, which by our blundering post office only reached me last night. I have added a short bit to the Pope, and also the Fenians. I’m sure you will agree with me as to Ireland; what we want is something like a continuous policy – something that men will be satisfied to see being carried out with the assurance that it will not be either discouraged or abandoned by a change of Government. We want, in fact, that Ireland should be administered for Ireland, and not for the especial gain or loss of party.

“My wife is a little better, and was up for a few hours yesterday. I suppose there is not much the matter with myself beyond some depression and a little want of appetite, but I know I’m not right, for I feel no enjoyment in whist.

“It is d – d hard that ‘Fossbrooke’ has been so little noticed. ‘Pall Mall’ and ‘Athenaeum’ are very civil, and my private ‘advices’ say I have done nothing equal to it. I know I am pretty sure never to do so again. If I had had time, I would have liked to have written a long paper on Ireland and its evils. I believe I have lived long enough in Ireland to know something of the country, and long enough out of it to have shaken off the prejudice and narrowness that attach to men who live at home – and I suspect I am a ‘wet’ Tory in much that regards Ireland, though not the least of a Whig in this or anything else. My O’D. will, however, serve as a pilot balloon, and if it go up freely we can follow in the same direction.

“If you see any notices, I am perfectly indifferent if civil or the reverse, of ‘Sir B.’ send them to me, and tell if you hear of any criticism from any noticeable quarter.

“I am sure you are right as to some ill-feeling towards me of the London press, though I cannot trace it to any distinct cause. If I had lived amongst them I am well aware they might hate me roundly, but I have not, – I have all my life been abroad, and never knew Grub St. That the fact is so I have a strong suspicion, and certainly ‘Tony Butler,’ anonymous, fared better till they began to discover [who wrote it].”

XVII. FLORENCE AND TRIESTE 1867

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Feb. 6, 1867.

“Up to this I have no tidings about the Queen’s Speech, and am as much in doubt as ever what the Government means. One thing I feel sure: if they do not propose some measure of reform, they are done for as a Party; and if they do, they are done for as a Ministry. Reform is a dose that will always kill the doctor that prescribes it.

“But there are graver mischiefs abroad. A great European war is coming, and I see already signs that the Yankees have their task assigned them by Russia, and which will immensely complicate the coming struggle. Jonathan is to sympathise with the distressed Cretans: he is to come into the war as a philanthropist, but it is a philanthropist with a six-shooter!

“I send you three short O’Ds. If the month is propitious I may find bones for another. Send me (if you have them) the rejected ones: I think I could transfuse blood into them and revive them. It is important that they should not be all political, and it is often hard to find a new social evil, particularly for a man laid up like myself, and not street-walking. You will see, without my telling it, that I am not myself. I am far from well, and my spirits, that I always thought would have gone on with me to the end, are flagging.

“There will be a strong session, and no quarter given or taken. How I envy the fellows that are in it. If men really wanted to see what the effect of numerical representation is, they ought to look at the French and Italian Chambers, – the one a closely packed crowd of Ministerial followers, the other a set of jobbing hounds representing neither the intelligence, the property, nor the enterprise of the country. The proprietary of Italy is scarcely seen in the Chamber, and the Parliament has neither credit with the country nor influence over it. One of Garibaldi’s ill-spelled silly proclamations is more law in the land than all that passes the House.

“I hope the Ministry will declare they want no measures of severity in Ireland, and will have the pluck to restore the Act of Habeas Corpus and give the lie to the Kimberley fabrication. I don’t say Ireland is sound, but she is no sicker than she ever was. As to the Established Church in Ireland, I am convinced that they who urge its destruction are less amicably disposed towards the Catholics than that they hate the Protestants. They always remind me of what Macaulay said of the Puritans, who put down bear-baiting not because it was cruel to the bear, but because it amused the people.

“There are many in Ireland who think that to abolish the Church would at once cut the tie that attaches Ireland to England. I myself think it would weaken it. There was assuredly a time in which, if Protestants could only have been assured that their religion would be respected, they would have joined O’Connell in Repeal. Though too loyal and too self-respecting to make outcry upon it, the Protestants in Ireland are far from thinking they are fairly dealt with.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morzlli, Florence, Feb. 17,1867.

“The short month compels me to beg you will look closely to these in proof, as I cannot hope to see them. I am ‘off the hook,’ but I wrote these last O’Ds. di cuôre, as I feel, especially in the Irish affair, the Cabinet is wrong.

“I am not sure of my appointment, but I believe it will take place. I was only waiting for certainty to tell you, well aware of your kind feeling for me. It is not a ‘big bird’ but, after all, I only shoot with a popgun.

“The Irish judge, Keogh, who tried the Fenians, dined with me yesterday. He has come abroad by special leave to escape the risque of assassination with which he was menaced.”

To Mr John Blackwood,

“Villa Morelli, Florbnce, Feb. 20, 1867.

“I write a mere line to say that I have this morning received my appointment to Trieste, and from all I hear of the climate, society, and place itself, I am fortunate. It is only eighteen hours by rail from this.

“In my last proof I corrected ‘La Marmora’ wrong: it should be ‘La Marmora’ (as it stood before I changed it). The Italian newspapers, however, spell it both ways.

“I intend to ask for a leave till May, since it would be dangerous to move my wife in bad or broken weather; so that if you should visit Paris (I mean, of course, you and Mrs B.), there is still time to come over to Florence before we leave it, and I hope that you may manage it.

“The promotion was made with great courtesy, and if I have not got a big slice of the pudding, I have been certainly ‘helped’ with all possible politeness.

“I suspect Dizzy has made a sad mull of his ‘resolutions.’ It is, however, hard to say what conditions his own friends may have imposed. At all events, if the Government be allowed to carry a bill, it will be to get rid of a troublesome measure and a party together. They will permit the horse to win, with the condition that the race shall break him down for ever.

“I scribble this hurriedly; but I knew you would like to hear I was safe out of the ship, even though it be only in a punt.

“Italy is going clean to the devil. It will be soon the choice between a Despotism or a Republic. Parliamentary government they never did understand, but so long as Cavour lived he made the nation think it was a Parliament ruled them, – and, stranger again, the Parliament itself believed so too!”

To Mr Alexander Spencer.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, Feb. 21,1867.

“As I know of no one who will be more pleased to hear of any piece of good fortune having befallen me than yourself, I write this to tell you that the Government have given me the Trieste Consulship. It is one of the best in all respects – worth at present £700 a-year, and with fair prospect of being increased. The place itself, climate, people, and position are all that I could desire. The way the thing was done was most courteous, and as Spezzia is to be abolished, it is clear that both my last and my present post were specially created to serve me.⁶

“Of course I am very glad to have some of the pressure of eternal authorship taken off my shoulders, for I can easily, by O’Dowd and such like discursive things, double my income without calling upon me for the effort of story-writing.

“I might have had something higher and more remunerative if I had been disposed to go farther away, but my wife’s health and my own inclination to keep in this part of Europe (only eighteen hours by rail from where I am) decided me to take Trieste.

“It is not, of course, without regret we leave the city we have lived twenty years in; and I believe I am not deceiving myself if I say that we shall be regretted here, for we have a large acquaintance, and are almost Florentine. Still, it would be madness to refuse such an offer and the security it gives that when my hand and head get more wearied I shall yet be able to live, and, like the princess in the fairy tale, only ‘kill mice’ for my amusement.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, March 6, 1867.

“I send you the Fenians altered – and, I hope, for the better. As the Government have called for the New Powers, there is no need to deplore their omitting to do so, and the paper will not read the worse that it does not censure them.

“I have thought over what you suggested about Gladstone, – but it would be too personal, and I hate him too much to trust myself to speak of him individually. As for the charm of his manner – his fascination, &c, – I think it is about the most arrant humbug I know. Joseph Surface, with a strong Lancashire burr, is the impression he left upon me.

“What a precious fiasco the Tories have made of their bill. Like the Chinese with the plum-pudding, they forgot to tie the bag, and all the ingredients have got loose in the pot. I see Lord Cranborne and Peel have left them. Both are losses, but it matters little how the crew is to muster when the ship is among the breakers.

“I set off for my post immediately, and hope that a new place, new situation, and new people may rally me out of my dreariness. Austrian politics, like Scotch law, confound one by the very names they give things; and I lose all pleasure in a trial when the plaintiff is called the ‘Promovent’! I know it will be many a day before I resign myself to believe that ‘Reichsrath’ means a council: it looks and sounds so like a tonic bitter. Still, I am going in for a strong acquaintance with Austria and Austrians, and mean to give up Italy when I cross the frontier.

“If Newdigate had not been such a good fellow I’d have liked to have quizzed him about his absurd speech concerning the Irish Catholics. It is hard to understand men so imbued with prejudice and yet mixing with the world. And as to Cardinal Cullen’s red stocking, why, good God! have we not seen the West Kent Rifles or the Dorset Fusiliers strutting about Paris in knickerbockers and cross belts, and there was no more thought of imitation in the one case than Papal supremacy in the other. Rome derives immense power and prestige from our unreasonable jealousy of her influence. The Prussians are far wiser: they ignore all cause of offence altogether, and outflank the priests in this way.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Hôtel de la Petri, Trieste, March 24,1867.

“Your packet with proof followed me to Vienna, into Hungary, and at length caught me here this morning – I need not say, too late for correction. I have had what Yankees call ‘a fine time,’ and talked myself hoarse in strange tongues; but I have seen strange men and cities, and, on the whole, filled my head while emptying my pocket. I have stories for you when we meet, and I trust that might be soon.

“As to my new post —keep the confession purely to yourself– it is unpleasant, damnable. There is nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to live in, no one to speak to. Liverpool, with Jews and blacklegs for gentlemen —voilà tout.

“It was a veritable leap in the dark, and I hesitated long whether it might not be best to pitch it to the devil who made it and go on penny-a-lining to the end; but Lord Bloomfield, our Ambassador at Vienna, who really took to me, persuaded me to hold on for a while at least, and I have asked for, and got, three months’ leave, during which time I must either try and get some change or poison myself.

“All this avowal – made, as you may believe, neither willingly nor pleasantly – is made to you alone of all my friends, for I am heartily ashamed of myself for getting into such a scrape and talking rather mysteriously about my good-luck, &c., which is pretty much like a man’s boasting at being transported for life. Trieste means no books, no writing, no O’D., no leave nor go of any kind, but moral death, and d – n too.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, April 6,1867.

“I got back here last night late to find your note, and I may own that I never ‘touched’ money that didn’t belong to me with more pleasure than your cheque, plucked by innkeepers and cleared out by whist as I have been while away.

“Only think of my going to see Flynn in prison at Venice! I hope I’ll be able some day to give you an account of our meeting. I have taken charge of the scoundrel’s petition for pardon, and believe I shall succeed in obtaining it, though what society is to gain by his liberation is more a matter for speculation than hope; but I am really curious to know what resources of knavery he has in his budget, all the more since his rival swindler, L. Napoleon, would seem at the end of his rogueries, and stands fully exposed and found out by all Europe. I saw some most astounding correspondence of his on the Mexican affair, and it will be published one of these days.

“I’ll go over ‘The Fenian’ the moment I am rested. Now my hand is shaking terribly, and I am a good deal fatigued.

“Trieste was a fatal blunder of mine. If you could hear of [any one who] would exchange with me, put him in ‘relations’ at once: I’ll pay liberally the ‘difference.’

“Of course I was not in London, though I read I was, in a Scotch paper. I hope you and Mrs B. will not let May go over without a run to Paris and a peep at us here. It would be a great pleasure to see you.

“I am, as you may believe, very down in the mouth about my move. I feel as might a vicar leaving a snug parsonage to become bishop in the Cannibal Islands.”

To Mr Alexander Spencer.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, May 7,1867.

“I suspect my Trieste appointment is a bit of a white elephant. There will be a great deal to do, a large staff necessary, and the place is generally costly to live in. In fact, I believe it would have been fully as well for me to have retained my humble post at Spezzia, where, if I received little, I did less. But I was tired of being a country mouse, and began to fancy that I had a right to some more generous diet than hard peas.

“My poor wife has gone back sorely in health. I have many causes for uneasiness, but this is the worst of all.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, June 18,1867.

“I enclose you the proof and a few pages to wind up ‘The Adieu.’

“You will see ere long that I am right about L. Nap. He means to play us a slippery trick about the East. He bamboozled us into the Crimean War, and he is now going to juggle us out of its small benefits.

“My wife is at last a little better. I got to bed last night after twelve nights of half-sleep on the sofa. I am fairly knocked up, and for this and other reasons do look to the proof, and don’t trust me.

“You have heard that Elliott has been appointed Ambassador to Constantinople. He is about the greatest ass in diplomacy, – a big word when one remembers Loftus at Berlin and Howard at Munich. Here is an epigram I made on his appointment: —

 
“F.O. is much puzzled, we all have heard recently,
To find proper Envoys to send to each Court;
And while Lyons at Paris may get along decently,
We rejoice to hear Elliott est mis à la Porte.”
 

To Mr John Blackwood.

“British Consulate, Trieste, July 2,1867.

“Though my cry, like the starling’s, is still ‘I can’t get out,’ I exist in the hope that I am not to be left to die here.

“I send you a short bit on Miramar that I hope you may like. I’ll follow it with something lighter, but I send this now to acknowledge your note and its eighteen-pounder (a shot in my locker that told with considerable effect). I see you will not pity me for being sentenced to this d – d place, but if you only saw the faces of the Shylocks you’d be more compassionate. If nothing else offer, I’ll try and negotiate an exchange with Flynn. I’ll be shot if there must not be something amongst the convicts more companionable than here.”