exercise your
humour, to do so in some less practical manner than by bribing boatmen
to upset your--(_friends_ crossed out thickly, and _acquaintances_
substituted.) If you require further enlightenment in this matter, the
enclosed letter may be of service to you."

With which he remained mine faithfully, Patrick Derrick.

The enclosed letter was from one Jane Muspratt. It was bright and
interesting.

"DEAR SIR,--My Harry, Mr. Hawk, sas to me how it was him upsetting the
boat and you, not because he is not steady in a boat which he is no man
more so in Combe Regis, but because one of the gentlemen what keeps
chikkens up the hill, the little one, Mr. Garnick his name is, says to
him, Hawk, I'll give you a sovrin to upset Mr. Derick in your boat, and
my Harry being esily led was took in and did, but he's sory now and
wishes he hadn't, and he sas he'll niver do a prackticle joke again for
anyone even for a banknote.--Yours obedly.,

JANE MUSPRATT."

Oh, woman, woman!

At the bottom of everything! History is full of tragedies caused by the
lethal sex. Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman. Who let Samson in
so atrociously? Woman again. Why did Bill Bailey leave home? Once more,
because of a woman. And here was I, Jerry Garnet, harmless,
well-meaning writer of minor novels, going through the same old mill.

I cursed Jane Muspratt. What chance had I with Phyllis now? Could I
hope to win over the professor again? I cursed Jane Muspratt for the
second time.

My thoughts wandered to Mr. Harry Hawk. The villain! The scoundrel!
What business had he to betray me? ... Well, I could settle with him.
The man who lays a hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is
justly disliked by Society; so the woman Muspratt, culpable as she was,
was safe from me. But what of the man Hawk? There no such
considerations swayed me. I would interview the man Hawk. I would give
him the most hectic ten minutes of his career. I would say things to
him the recollection of which would make him start up shrieking in his
bed in the small hours of the night. I would arise, and be a man, and
slay him; take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes
broad-blown, as flush as May, at gaming, swearing, or about some act
that had no relish of salvation in it.

The Demon!

My life--ruined. My future--grey and black. My heart--shattered. And
why? Because of the scoundrel, Hawk.

Phyllis wo