To tell you the truth, Tom, I 'd go back to-morrow, if I could. "And why can't you?--what prevents you, Kenny?" I hear you say. Just this, then, I haven't the pluck! I couldn't stand the attack of Mrs. D. and her daughter. I 'm not equal to it. My constitution is n't what it used to be, and I'm afraid of the gout. At my time of life, they say it always flies to the heart or to the head,--maybe because there 's a vacancy in these places after fifty-six or seven years of age! I see, too, by the looks Mrs. D. gives Mary Anne occasionally, that they know this; and she often gives me to understand that she does n't wish to dispute with me, for reasons of her own. This is all very well, and kindly meant, Tom, but it throws me into a depression that is dreadful.
I see by the papers that you've taken up all kinds of "Sanitary Questions" at home. As for the health of towns, Tom, the grand thing is not to suffer them to grow too big. You're always crying out about twelve people sleeping in one room somewhere, and you gave the ages of each of them in the "Times," and you grow moral and modest, and I don't know what else, about decency, destitution, and so forth; but what's London itself but the very same thing on an enlarged scale? It's nonsense to fret about a wart, when you have a wen in the same neighborhood. Not that I'm sorry to see fine folk taking trouble about what concerns the poor, particularly when they go about it sensibly and quietly, without any balderdash of little books, and, above all, without a ladies' committee. If there 's anything chokes me, it's a ladies' committee. Three married women on bad terms with their husbands, four widows, and five old maids, all prying, pedantic, and impertinent,--going loose about the world with little subscription-cards, decrying innocent pleasures, and decoying your children's pocket-money,--turning benevolence into a house-tax, and making charity like the "Pipe-water." You remark, too, that the pretty women won't join these gangs at all. Now and then you may see one take out a letter of marque, and cruise for herself, but never in company. Seeing the importunity of these old damsels, I often wondered why the Government never thought of employing ladies as tax-collectors. He 'd be a hardy man who 'd make one or two I could mention call twice.