been bad for some time,
published some work upon the "mesoblast" of the Death's Head Moth.
What the mesoblast of the Death's Head Moth may be, does not matter a
rap in this story. But the work was far below his usual standard, and
gave Hapley an opening he had coveted for years. He must have worked
night and day to make the most of his advantage.

In an elaborate critique he rent Pawkins to tatters--one can fancy the
man's disordered black hair, and his queer dark eyes flashing as
he went for his antagonist--and Pawkins made a reply, halting,
ineffectual, with painful gaps of silence, and yet malignant. There
was no mistaking his will to wound Hapley, nor his incapacity to
do it. But few of those who heard him--I was absent from that
meeting--realised how ill the man was.

Hapley had got his opponent down, and meant to finish him. He followed
with a simply brutal attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon
the development of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of a
most extraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a
violently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an editorial note
witnesses that it was modified. It must have covered Pawkins with
shame and confusion of face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in
argument, and utterly contemptuous in tone; an awful thing for the
declining years of a man's career.

The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for the rejoinder from
Pawkins. He would try one, for Pawkins had always been game. But when
it came it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was to catch
the influenza, to proceed to pneumonia, and to die.

It was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make under the
circumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against
Hapley. The very people who had most gleefully cheered on those
gladiators became serious at the consequence. There could be no
reasonable doubt the fret of the defeat had contributed to the death
of Pawkins. There was a limit even to scientific controversy, said
serious people. Another crushing attack was already in the press and
appeared on the day before the funeral. I don't think Hapley exerted
himself to stop it. People remembered how Hapley had hounded down his
rival, and forgot that rival's defects. Scathing satire reads ill over
fresh mould. The thing provoked comment in the daily papers. This it
was that made me think that you had probably heard of Hapley and this
controversy. But, as I