People in country-houses should be exceedingly careful about their
blotting-paper. They should bring their own portfolios with them. If any
kind readers will bear this simple little hint in mind, how much mischief
may they save themselves,--nay, enjoy possibly, by looking at the pages
of the next portfolio in the next friend's bedroom in which they sleep.
From such a book I once cut out, in Charles Slyboots' well-known and
perfectly clear handwriting, the words, "Miss Emily Hartington, James
Street, Backingham Gate, London," and produced as legibly on the
blotting-paper as on the envelope which the postman delivered. After
showing the paper round to the company, I enclosed it in a note and sent
it to Mr. Slyboots, who married Miss Hartington three months afterwards.
In such a book at the club I read, as plainly as you may read this page,
a holograph page of the Right Honourable the Earl of Bareacres, which
informed the whole club of a painful and private circumstance, and said,
"My dear Green,--I am truly sorry that I shall not be able to take up the
bill for eight hundred and fifty-six pounds, which becomes due next
Tu----" and upon such a book, going to write a note in Madame de
Moncontour's drawing-room at Rosebury, what should I find but proofs that
my own wife was engaged in a clandestine correspondence with a gentleman
residing abroad!
"Colonel Newcome, C.
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