.)

And now it seemed he was in some sort a villain. Although shocked, I felt
a secret joy. For somewhat too broadly had Bell smirked his sanctity on
me. When piety has been flaunting over you, you will steal a slim occasion
to proclaim a flaw. There is much human nature goes to the stoning of a
saint. In my ignorance I had set the rogue in the company of the decorous
Lorna Doone and the gentle ladies of Mrs. Gaskell. It is not that I admire
that chaste assembly. But it were monstrous, even so, that I should
neighbor them with this Bell, who, as it appeared, was no better than a
wolf in calf's clothing. It was Little Red Riding Hood, you will recall,
who mistook a wolf for her grandmother. And with what grief do we look on
her unhappy end!

My hand was now raised to drag Bell out by the heels, when I reflected
that what I had heard might be unfounded gossip, mere tattle, and that
before I turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to set an
inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him alongside Herbert Spencer. If it
were Bell's desire to play the grandmother to him, he would find him tough
meat.

Bell, John--I looked him up, first in volume Aus to Bis of the
encyclopedia, without finding him, and then successfully in the National
Biography--Bell, John, was a London bookseller. He was born in 1745,
published his edition of Shakespeare in 1774, and after this assault, with
the blood upon him, lived fifty years. This was reassuring. It was then
but a bit of wild oats, no hanging matter. I now went at the question
deeply. Yet I left him awhile with the indigestible Herbert.

It was in 1774 that Bell squirted his dirty ink. In _The Gentleman's
Magazine_ for that year appear mutterings from America, since called the
Boston Tea Party. I set this down to bring the time more warmly to your
mind, for a date alone is but a blurred signpost unless you be a scholar.
And it is advisedly that I quote from this particular periodical, because
its old files can best put the past back upon its legs and set it going.
There is a kind of history-book that sorts the bones and ties them all
about with strings, that sets the past up and bids it walk. Yet it will
not wag a finger. Its knees will clap together, its chest fall in. Such
books are like the scribblings on a tombstone; the ghost below gives not
the slightest squeal of life. But slap it shut and read what was written
hastily at the time on the pages of _The Gentleman's Magazine_,