insinuates that we are very stupid. It's no such thing; we are not
stupid a bit, and we mean to show Mr. B. as much before we have done
with him. Mr. Benson is a pompous young aristocrat, and Mr. Grabster is
more of a gentleman than he is--and so are we too for that matter. He
says the Bath Hotel is a badly kept house. We say it isn't, and we know
a great deal better than he does. We have dined there very often, and
found the fare and attendance excellent: and so did the Honorable
Theophilus Q. Smith, of Arkansas, last summer, when he came to enjoy the
invigorating breezes of this healthful locality. That distinguished and
remarkable man expressed himself struck with the arrangements of the
Bath Hotel, which left him no cause, he said, to regret the comforts of
his western home. But this establishment cannot please the fastidious
Mr. Benson! _O tempora, O Moses!_ as Cicero said to Catiline, _quousque
tandem_?

And so on for three columns.

Likewise, _The Sewer_, which had begun to blackguard _The Blunder and
Bluster's_ correspondent while he remained under the shelter of his
pseudonym, now that his name was known, came out with double virulence,
and filled half a sheet with filthy abuse of Harry, including collateral
assaults on his brother, grandmother, and second cousins, and most of
the surviving members of his wife's family. But as Benson never read
_The Sewer_, this part of the attack was an utter waste of Billingsgate
so far as he was concerned. What did surprise and annoy him was to find
that _The Inexpressible_, which, though well-known to be a stupid, was
generally considered a decent paper, had taken the enemy's side, and
published some very impertinent paragraphs about him. Afterwards he
discovered that he had been the victim of a principle. _The
Inexpressible_ and _Blunder and Bluster_ had a little private quarrel of
their own, and the former felt bound to attack every thing in any way
connected with the latter.

Nevertheless Benson was not very much distressed even at this
occurrence, for a reason which we shall now give at length, and which
will at the same time explain the propriety of the heading we have given
to this number. While every body was reading _The Sewer_ and _The
Twaddler_, and the more benevolent were pitying Harry for having started
such a nest of editorial and other blackguards about his ears, and the
more curious were wondering whether he would leave the hotel and resign
the field of