Mr. Ashby writes like a man who knows what he is talking about.  His exposition appears to me to be essentially sound and extremely well put.  I wish there were more sanitary officers of the same stamp.  Mr. Spencer is a very admirable writer, and I set great store by his works.  But we are very old friends, and he has endured me as a sort of “devil’s advocate” for thirty-odd years.  He thinks that if I can pick no holes in what he says he is safe.  But I pick a great many holes, and we agree to differ.

[Between April and September, Fishery business took him out of London for no less than forty-three days, first to Cornwall, then in May to Brixham, in June to Cumberland and Yorkshire, in July to Chester, and in September to South Devon, Cornwall, and Wales.  A few extracts from his letters home may be given.  Just before starting, he writes from Marlborough Place to Rogate, where his wife and one of his daughters were staying:—­]

April 8.

The weather turned wonderfully muggy here this morning, and turned me into wet paper.  But I contrived to make a “neat and appropriate” in presenting old Hird with his testimonial.  Fayrer and I were students under him forty years ago, and as we stood together it was a question which was the greyest old chap.

April 14.

I have almost given up reading the Egyptian news, I am so disgusted with the whole business.  I saw several pieces of land to let for building purposes about Falmouth, but did not buy. [This was to twit his wife with her constant desire that he should buy a bit of land in the country to settle upon in their old age.]

April 18.

You don’t say when you go back, so I direct this to Rogate.  I shall expect to see you quite set up.  We must begin to think seriously about getting out of the hurly-burly a year or two hence, and having an Indian summer together in peace and quietness.

April 15, Sunday, Falmouth.

I went out at ten o’clock this morning, and did not get back till near seven.  But I got a cup of tea and some bread and butter in a country village, and by the help of that and many pipes supported nature.  There was a bitter east wind blowing, but the day was lovely otherwise, and by judicious dodging in coves and creeks and sandy bays, I escaped the wind and absorbed a prodigious quantity of sunshine.

I took a volume of the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” with me.  I had not read the famous 15th and 16th chapters for ages, and I lay on the sands and enjoyed them properly.  A lady came and spoke to me as I returned, who knew L. at Oxford very well—­can’t recollect her name—­and her father and mother are here, and I have just been spending an hour with them.  Also a man who sat by me at dinner knew me from Jack’s portrait.  So my incognito is not very good.  I feel quite set up by my day’s wanderings.

May 11, Torquay.