said the divinity-student,--if your
democratic notions get into print. You will be fired into from all
quarters.

If it were only a bullet, with the marksman's name on it!--I said.--I
can't stop to pick out the peep-shot of the anonymous scribblers.

Right, Sir! right!--said the Little Gentleman. The scamps! I know the
fellows. They can't give fifty cents to one of the Antipodes, but they
must have it jingled along through everybody's palms all the way, till it
reaches him,--and forty cents of it gets spilt, like the water out of the
fire-buckets passed along a "lane" at a fire;--but when it comes to
anonymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths, and then
advertising those people through the country as the authors of them,--oh,
then it is that they let not their left hand know what their right hand
doeth!

I don't like Ehud's style of doing business, Sir. He comes along with a
very sanctimonious look, Sir, with his "secret errand unto thee," and his
"message from God unto thee," and then pulls out his hidden knife with
that unsuspected hand of his,---(the Little Gentleman lifted his clenched
left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,)--and runs it,
blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with these fellows,
Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, if you
were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinions are not
attacked is beneath contempt.

I hope so,--I said.--I got three pamphlets and innumerable squibs flung
at my head for attacking one of the pseudo-sciences, in former years.
When, by the permission of Providence, I held up to the professional
public the damnable facts connected with the conveyance of poison from
one young mother's chamber to another's,--for doing which humble office I
desire to be thankful that I have lived, though nothing else good should
ever come of my life,--I had to bear the sneers of those whose position I
had assailed, and, as I believe, have at last demolished, so that nothing
but the ghosts of dead women stir among the ruins.--What would you do, if
the folks without names kept at you, trying to get a San Benito on to
your shoulders that would fit you?--Would you stand still in fly-time, or
would you give a kick now and then?

Let 'em bite!--said the Little Gentleman,--let 'em bite! It makes 'em
hungry to shake 'em off, and they settle down again as thick as ever and
twice as savage. Do you know what meddlin