Re: the delightful Sharpe-to-Scott letter, I take the 'this is serious' comment to imply that Sharpe feels he has MORE than just the identical names to feed his suspicion; in other words, 'I'm not just a nitwit who thinks that merely because this Barbara Allen has the same name as the one in the ballad, they must be related - I have other interesting evidence, so you should take this - and me - seriously.' However, it IS possible that he means, 'Wow! The same name! This is really important!' But he seems a bit too clever for that: note the irony in his self-deprecation re: his transcription of the letter 'which is rather amusing, and as I am not at all so, I will transcribe it here, that this epistle may not be totally unworthy of postage.'

(Suggestion to Gutcher: try TWO fingers - the index finger of each hand. You're welcome.)