and by stabbing me, make me too a most swift stabber in the recoil. Which point first?—this!'
He tore open the left-hand letter:—
'Sir:—You are a swindler. Upon the pretence of writing a popular novel for us, you have been receiving cash advances from us, while passing through our press the sheets of a blasphemous rhapsody, filched from the vile Atheists, Lucian and Voltaire. Our great press of publication has hitherto prevented our slightest inspection of our reader's proofs of your book. Send not another sheet to us. Our bill for printing thus far, and also for our cash advances, swindled out of us by you, is now in the hands of our lawyer, who is instructed to proceed with instant rigour.
He folded the left-hand letter, and put it beneath his left heel, and stood upon it so; and then opened the right-hand letter.
'Thou, Pierre Glendinning, art a villainous and perjured liar. It is the sole object of this letter imprintedly to convey the point-blank lie to thee; that taken in at thy heart, it may be thence pulsed with thy blood, throughout thy system. We have let some interval pass inactive, to confirm and solidify our hate. Separately, and together, we brand thee, in thy every lung-cell, a liar;—liar, because that is the scornfullest and loathsomest title for a man; which in itself is the compend of all infamous things.
Frederic Tartan.'
He folded the right-hand letter, and put it beneath his right heel; then folding his two arms, stood upon both letters.
'These are most small circumstances; but happening
