d the professor to say to me?

The next moment my heart seemed to spring to my throat.

"Sir," the letter began.

A pleasant, cheery beginning!

Then it got off the mark, so to speak, like lightning. There was no
sparring for an opening, no dignified parade of set phrases leading up
to the main point. It was the letter of a man who was almost too
furious to write. It gave me the impression that, if he had not
written it, he would have been obliged to have taken some very violent
form of exercise by way of relief to his soul.

"You will be good enough," he wrote, "to look on our acquaintance as
closed. I have no wish to associate with persons of your stamp. If we
should happen to meet, you will be good enough to treat me as a total
stranger, as I shall treat you. And, if I may be allowed to give you a
word of advice, I should recommend you in future, when you wish to
exercise your humor, to do so in some less practical manner than by
bribing boatmen to upset your" (_friends_ crossed out thickly, and
_acquaintances_ substituted). "If you require further enlightenment in
this matter, the inclosed letter may be of service to you."

With which he remained mine faithfully, Patrick Derrick.

The inclosed letter was from one Jane Muspratt. It was bright and
interesting.

DEAR SIR: My Harry, Mr. Hawk, sas to me how it was him
upseting the boat and you, not because he is not steddy in a
boat which he is no man more so in Lyme Regis but because
one of the gentmen what keeps chikkens up the hill, the
little one, Mr. Garnick his name is, says to him Hawk, I'll
give you a sovrin to upset Mr. Derrick in your boat, and my
Harry being esily led was took in and did but he's sory now
and wishes he hadn't, and he sas he'll niver do a prackticle
joke again for anyone even for a bank note.

Yours obedly

JANE MUSPRATT.

O woman, woman!

At the bottom of everything! History is full of cruel tragedies caused
by the lethal sex.

Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman. Who let Samson in so
atrociously? Woman again. Why did Bill Bailey leave home? Once more,
because of a woman. And here was I, Jerry Garnet, harmless,
well-meaning writer of minor novels, going through the same old mill.

I cursed Jane Muspratt. What chance had I with Phyllis now? Could I
hope to win over the professor again? I cursed Jane Muspratt for the
second time.

My thoughts wandered to Mr. Harry Hawk. The vi