Ottley swears never to have seen your handwriting, save on the back of a protested bill.

You have totally forgotten _me_, and the dean informs me that you have never condescended a single line to him; which latter inquiry on my part nearly cost me a rustication.
A hundred conjectures to account for your silence--a new feature in you since you were here--are afloat.

Some assert that your soldiering has turned your head, and that you are above corresponding with civilians.

Your friends, however, who know you better and value your worth, think otherwise; and having seen a paragraph about a certain O'Malley being tried by court-martial for stealing a goose, and maltreating the woman that owned it, ascribe your not writing to other motives.

Do, in any case, relieve our minds; say, is it yourself, or only a relative that's mentioned?
Herbert came over from London with a long story about your doing wonderful things,--capturing cannon and general officers by scores,--but devil a word of it is extant; and if you have really committed these acts, they have "misused the king's press damnably," for neither in the "Times" nor the "Post" are you heard of.
Answer this point, and say also if you have got promotion; for what precise sign you are algebraically expressed by at this writing, may serve Fitzgerald for a fellowship question.