instructed on the subject of the mitigation of our pains in the regions
below. Potts affirmed that he meant to die a Protestant Christian.
Thereupon, carrying a leaden burden of unlaughed laughable stuff in his
breast, and Chummy's concluding remark to speed him: 'Damn it, no, we'll
stick to our religion!' Fleetwood strode off to his library, and with
the names of the Ixionides of his acquaintance ringing round his head,
proceeded to strike one of them off the number privileged at the moment
to intrude on him. Others would follow; this one must be the first to
go. He wrote the famous letter to Lord Brailstone, which debarred the
wily pursuer from any pretext to be running down into Mrs. Levellier's
neighbourhood, and also precluded the chance of his meeting the fair
lady at Calesford. With the brevity equivalent to the flick of a glove
on the cheek, Lord Brailstone was given to understand by Lord Fleetwood
that relations were at an end between them. No explanation was added; a
single sentence executed the work, and in the third person. He did not
once reflect on the outcry in the ear of London coming from the receiver
of such a letter upon payment of a debt.

The letter posted and flying, Lord Fleetwood was kinder to Chumley
Potts; he had a friendly word for Gower Woodseer; though both were
heathens, after their diverse fashions, neither of them likely ever to
set out upon the grand old road of Rome: Lord Feltre's 'Appian Way of
the Saints and Comforters.'

Chummy was pardoned when they separated at night for his reiterated
allusions to the temptation of poor Ambrose Mallard's conclusive little
weapon lying on the library table within reach of a man's arm-chair: in
its case, and the case locked, yes, but easily opened, 'provoking every
damnable sort of mortal curiosity!' The soundest men among us have their
fits of the blues, Fleetwood was told. 'Not wholesome!' Chummy shook his
head resolutely, and made himself comprehensibly mysterious. He meant
well. He begged his old friend to promise he would unload and keep it
unloaded. 'For I know the infernal worry you have--deuced deal worse
than a night's bad luck!' said he; and Fleetwood smiled sourly at the
world's total ignorance of causes. His wretchedness was due now to
the fact that the aforetime huntress refused to be captured. He took a
silver cross from a table-drawer and laid it on the pistol-case. 'There,
Chummy,' he said; that was all; not sermonizing or proselyt