Nothing but an overwhelming sense of the comparative necessity of writing to you tonight could induce me to keep from bed at eleven o’clock this evening when I am going shooting in the morning & have many preparations to make. I returned from Mr. Ayres at nearly 9 o’clock (I made the morrow’s engagement with him), found company here, was up late last night & must be up very early in the morning to clean the gun, &c.

How then can I go into the particulars you wish, & tell you how I made a triumphant incursion to Cheshire—(& carrying their women & children into captivity beyond the grand canawl). How the “’oss run away with me” three times; with what coolness & desperate calmness I guided the rushing foaming steed between Scylla & Charybdis. Piloting by Jacobsen in one of the rushes with the skill of a “branch pilot” or old (what’s his name—Aeneas’ man) himself. How with Jac. I dined, drank & smoked at Farmington. How the court of enquiry (Ego,—judge advocate) decided the hold backs were too long & “no blame was to be imputed to the captain or ossifers.” How I got to Brooks’ Grove before dark almost & attended a “musical sweary” at the residence of our host in my long-togs same evening. How the daughter of our distinguished senator passed the night & was escorted to her residence in his own carriage by a gentleman well known in fashionable circles of west end (of Cheshire) who returned with Lizzy calling on two ladies “by the way.” How the same evening I attended a party—should I say a “route” at the villa of the honorable statesman whom I have before mentioned. How I did rush it &c. How I kissed (sub rosa!) (whisper it ye—s) the three pret—no, I can’t, I can’t!

I have got the old (aunty’s) stove up in our room & have been [130]rerigging it, the room, in anticipation partly of the cozy times we & co. will have there one of these (Christmas I was going to say—but two weeks thereafter) days. Not for that have I shifted bedstead & got a truck (not a cart) which takes up about half the room of the old one. Your (that would be) cane or cudgel or spruce shillelagh as Mrs. Kelly calls it awaits your order or somebody’s transportation to you, but I guess you have best “leave that be,” as well as the pictures now, till you are up or I am down.

Mr. Ayres (I took tea, or dinner, or supper with him & or his brother & that pretty sweet little dam’d wife of his, spent p.m. & evening) does very much want a “crane-eye.” Do you know any boat man? (Did that come off?) Ask him about ’em. The “Governor” said New London harbour was full of ’em. To catch them make a jig (“squid,” properly in New York) of a pipe stem on a “pin hook.” Troll.

Our boat is gone—gone; & is not in the city waters, I think. I shall try “Ho-can-um” & if not there conclude a sloop has “hauled in the slack” on’t.

Mrs. Governor Ellsworth says (did I tell you?) Ol[iver] will go to China any how, if he has to go before the mast.

The venerable Audubon dined with Mr. Ayres short time since. Next spring starts for Council Bluff, Yellowstone & Rocky Mountains in search of materials for his new magnificence, “Zoology of America.” “Might I be there to see.”