mfrey saw no harm.'

Captain Baskelett held up Dr. Shrapnel's letter to Commander Beauchamp,
at about half a yard's distance on the level of his chin, as a
big-chested singer in a concert-room holds his music-scroll.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP

Before we give ear to the recital of Dr. Shrapnel's letter to his pupil
in politics by the mouth of Captain Baskelett, it is necessary to defend
this gentleman, as he would handsomely have defended himself, from the
charge that he entertained ultimate designs in regard to the really
abominable scrawl, which was like a child's drawing of ocean with here
and there a sail capsized, and excited his disgust almost as much as
did the contents his great indignation. He was prepared to read it, and
stood blown out for the task, but it was temporarily too much for him.
'My dear Colonel, look at it, I entreat you,' he said, handing the
letter for exhibition, after fixing his eye-glass, and dropping it in
repulsion. The common sentiment of mankind is offended by heterodoxy in
mean attire; for there we see the self-convicted villain--the criminal
caught in the act; we try it and convict it by instinct without the
ceremony of a jury; and so thoroughly aware of our promptitude in this
respect has our arch-enemy become since his mediaeval disgraces that his
particular advice to his followers is now to scrupulously copy the world
in externals; never to appear poorly clothed, nor to impart deceptive
communications in bad handwriting. We can tell black from white, and our
sagacity has taught him a lesson.

Colonel Halkett glanced at the detestable penmanship. Lord Palmet did
the same, and cried, 'Why, it's worse than mine!'

Cecilia had protested against the reading of the letter, and she
declined to look at the writing. She was entreated, adjured to look, in
Captain Baskelett's peculiarly pursuing fashion; a 'nay, but you shall,'
that she had been subjected to previously, and would have consented to
run like a schoolgirl to escape from.

To resume the defence of him: he was a man incapable of forming plots,
because his head would not hold them. He was an impulsive man, who could
impale a character of either sex by narrating fables touching persons
of whom he thought lightly, and that being done he was devoid of malice,
unless by chance his feelings or his interests were so aggrieved that
his original haphazard impulse was bent to embrace new circu