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Dear B

Just got your letter, & should have answered it a week ago, if I had known where to direct. I said to myself, "If I write to Westport, they'll be at Elizabethtown, and the contrary, so I'll wait," which I did, and now say that the night you are here, I , contrary to my principles, and practices, being that my wife was absent, went out among the women, and tarried till too late, Well, if you come here at the time, you speak of, you will find me in the South-West corner of the little parlour we have, over -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- a table, a-writing and a-writing, with all my might, for fear the printer's devil, now full 300 pp behind me, will emporte me, as the Frenchmen say. Here is Dr Marsh wants to see you very badly about something. I think he wants you to tell him, whether the talk about our 'red brethren' and our 'black sisters' is all bosh or not, also whether Abdul Hamid really did see niggers with tails, also Mary heard that you were studying oology, how to tell a good egg from an addled one, and, in short, if there is anything that you know and he don't, he wants to be told of it.

Mrs Marsh did honestly intend to come home by Sept. 1, but can't, and will not be here before the 10th & I fear even a week -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- later. I am extremely sorry for this, both on her account and on Mary's, whom she is very desirous to see. However, I shall be just as glad to see you both, & perhaps even more so, for I don't have a chance to exchange a reasonable word with anybody once in a month, and, whereas I used to be a conversible, and, I say it boldly, a witty person, I am grown the dullest old owl in Christendom.

Write me a letter.

Love to Mary, [...]

Yours truly

P.S. Dr Marsh has just come in, & says he shall go over to Elizabethtown on Monday to see you.

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